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Metal Processing

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Laser “Tracer”: a tool which reflects Cetim’s excellence

By detecting and correcting geometrical defects in machine-tools, Cetim’s laser “Tracer” provides unequalled measurement quickness and accuracy. The machine is now undergoing tests and will be made available to the industry players in the course of the second quarter of 2014.

All professionals specialising in metrology use conventional tools and means (laser interferometers, rulers, squares and dial gauges) to quantify perpendicularity or squareness, parallelism, straightness and accurate positioning of the axes of numerically-controlled machine tools. Such measurements are required whenever any drift appears in positioning or geometry thereby causing deviations which are prejudicial to the machining quality of the parts.

The laser “Tracer” stems from the partnership between the German certification body PTB (Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt) and the British laboratory NPL (National Physical Laboratory) and revolutionises this type of measurement. In fact, this equipment divides the machine tool downtimes by three. It ensures a precision of plus minus 0.5 µm per meter (versus 5 µm per meter with the conventional measurements tools). It allows measurements over lengths up to 15 meters along the XYZ axes.

Cetim’s laser “Tracer” is comprised of a tracker laser interferometer and a spherical deflection lens. The lens displacement strategy in the machine’s volume is programmed via the software provided by the Etalon Company and encoded according to the language of the machine tool to be checked. A multitude of points is automatically measured and recorded.

Says Thierry Chaintreuil from Cetim:  “based on the deviation analysis of each one of the measured points as well as an advanced displacement strategy, the software is capable of calculating the accuracy, squareness, straightness, angle and parallelism errors for the three axes XYZ. The results are provided in the form of listings and graphics in compliance with the ISO standard 230-2 for machine tools and the ISO standard 10360 for machines to be measured in 3D”.

The laser “Tracer” was released to the market in 2008 and is already in use by many industrial firms in Japan, Korea, Germany, the United States, Italy and Great Britain. Three facilities are installed in France: in the National Testing Laboratory (LNE) (“Laboratoire National d’Essai”) in the Institute of Technology (IUT) of Aix-en-Provence and on Cetim’s site in Saint-Étienne.

Contacts:

sqr@cetim.fr

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