The Most Important Analysis Performed by an Industrial CT Scanner

The industrial CT scanner has been leveraged to provide manufacturers and designers with a number of benefits over the past decade. It is primarily used to produce 3D representations of components. These representations can be both internal and external. With such a diverse set of tests an industrial CT scanner can run, it is important that companies understand what analysis is often considered the most important. While every analysis provides a certain level of benefit to a company, the most important tests are those which maximize cost savings and streamline part development and manufacturing.An essential analysis performed by an industrial CT scanner is intelligent fault analysis. Utilizing 3D representations during the analysis allows manufacturers to quickly identify the defects. The faster a company identifies defects, the faster they can fix the problem. Additionally, discovering a lack of defects is equally advantageous in the event a manufacturer finds itself facing a civil lawsuit because it proves the part is not at fault.Another important analysis is visible surface detection. Advanced industrial CT scanners can utilize a visible surface detection algorithm in a variety of different ways. The result is an accurate part topography and internal 3D imaging. This is particularly important for product designers during the final design stages because it prevents them from overlooking easy-to-miss details before the part is manufactured. Eliminating this type of mistake provides a significant cost-savings.


The ability to analysis and compare a part to either another part or CAD design is critical as well. An industrial CT scanner must have the ability to compare both nominal and actual data. This allows manufacturers to visual the actual dimension and potential dimensional changes by comparing 3D CAD data with actual CT data.The final critical analysis performed by an industrial CT scanner is the wall thickness analysis. This function not only analyses the thickness of a specific area of interest quantitatively, but also makes it easy to visualize the wall thickness. It achieves this by using colour combinations, such as blue for thicker and red for thinner, to make visualizing wall thickness easy. This allows the actual measurements to be displayed through annotations while making the entire part wall thickness easy to visualize.Along with being able to perform the most important analysis, a quality industrial CT scanner must also feature reliable hardware and software. The best options typically rely on Volkswagen Internal Testing Standards P201/VW50097. They are internal quality control guidelines which are now implemented by most European parts manufacturers.