Optimizing product quality is the most important goal for any industrial components manufacturer. For this reason, in-line inspections are essential in order to minimize rejects, thus reducing costs and the amount of rework required. The ISAR X-ray inspection system, which represents the latest technology in the area of fully-automated X-ray imaging analysis, is a central component in the in-line inspection of various types of components.
When conducting radioscopy an X-ray source is emitting X-radiation. This radiation is capable of penetrating objects. Depending on material and wall thickness of the specimen the radiation is attenuated. A detector mounted on the opposite side is generating a shadow image of the specimen from the remaining radiation. The various shades of gray of these shadow images are representing the differences in wall thicknesses of the specimen. Defects, e.g. an air inclusion, are showing a lower absorption and are thus visible as bright spots.
When applying fully-automated radioscopy the specimens are positioned by a handling system and the images are generated automatically. These images are subsequently evaluated by an automatic defect recognition (ADR) software. Detected defects are evaluated according to defined criteria. Depending on the results of the evaluation, the specimens are automatically discharged or passed on for further processing.