Laser profile scanner aids control of pipe welding process

Middle East Tube Company (Metco) is said to be Israel's largest manufacturer of steel pipe. As these pipes are used for transporting sewage, water, oil or gas, the weld seam produced during the manufacturing process must be leak-tight.

The pipe material is joined to a pipe using the spiral welding technique. The positioning of the metal sheets for this process was previously carried out manually. However, the difficulties in aligning the pipes accurately resulted in continual problems.

Using Micro-Epsilon's scanCONTROL 2710 laser profile scanner the positioning process is now performed automatically. The calculated profile information is used to control the positioning process directly, with the optional output unit converting this data and transmitting it via FireWire.

The measuring object rotates at a speed of 1.5m/min and the ambient temperature at the sensor reaches a maximum of 40degC, yet no special cooling is required.

The 2710 is part of Micro-Epsilon's SMART series of scanCONTROL laser profile scanners. The SMART series has been developed to process the measurement profile data internally and calculate common parameters; for example, step height, gap, width, relative position, etc.

Not only will the sensors derive multiple parameters from a common library in parallel, but they also provide multiple pass/fail switch outputs. This enables users to configure the sensor once, then the sensor operates in standalone mode without any additional PC or PLC. Both digital and analogue outputs are available directly from the sensor. The scanCONTROL 2710 offers all this functionality in a single integrated unit.

Follow the link for more information about Micro-Epsilon's scanCONTROL SMART laser profile sensors. Alternatively email [email protected] or telephone the sales department on +44 (0)151 355 6070.