Camera inspection of aluminium castings

About the project

For a manufacturer of aluminium automotive components we built two machine vision systems for visual inspection of two different automotive turbocharger castings. The systems share the same basis but are adapted to each casting according to the required tolerances of the inspected points, which are important for the correct operation and service life of the turbocharger.

Images are captured with industrial cameras in LabVIEW. Reliable detection of irregularities required suitable lighting with custom-made lights; because of external light, system 1 was fully enclosed in a dark box.

How it works

1. Lighting and start-up: switching on the LED lighting and starting the LabVIEW application.
2. Placing the part: the operator places the casting in the device.
3. Image capture and processing: at the inspected locations the program finds defects, e.g. pores in the sealing grooves, and calculates their total area.
4. Sorting: if the total defect area exceeds the set limit, the part is rejected; then the next part follows.

We tested both devices in a test environment and developed them to the point where they serve for quality control of casting and machining of the cast parts. They reduced scrap, allowed defects to be corrected in time and removed non-compliant castings from the assembly lines.