Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IISWe are using relaxometry methods developed in-house on portable tabletop devices to characterize and identify materials that are not usually suitable for magnetic resonance, such as plastics, silicones and adhesives. Our fingerprint technology identifies different types of plastic and can also detect changes in the material. In addition to standard inspection tasks, relaxometry allows processes to be monitored and delivers functional information. This fast and sensitive method is ideal for monitoring time intervals from the microsecond range up to periods of days or even weeks – for observing drying, hardening or mixing processes, for example. Thanks to the speed of the measurements, the method is also suitable for inline process control.
In quality assurance, special methods can detect defects and contamination and identify their location on test samples using tomography or 3D imaging. Such imaging can also determine the homogeneity and degree of crosslinking in two-component materials such as silicone or polyurethane.
In our development of these methods, scalability and portability were top priorities. To this end, the positioning unit has a fully mechanical design that is compatible with existing drive axes of the tomography system. Given that no electrical connection is required, all it takes to upgrade an existing CT device with this unit is to flange-mount the manipulator to the drive axis. Software control allows movement of the test object to be defined and automated.