SenSGlatt - Increasing the technical availability of skived and roller burnished pipe products using a sensory tool for combined skiving and roller burnishing

Pneumatic or hydraulic actuator cylinders are used in a wide range of applications, such as in construction and agricultural machinery or automated sorting and production lines, and are a standard component in mechanical engineering. High-precision cylinder tubes with a high surface quality are required for use in actuator cylinders. One manufacturing process that enables the production of such close-tolerance cylinder tubes is combined skiving and roller burnishing. However, the potential of combined skiving and roller burnishing remains largely untapped at present because the process involves relatively long non-productive times. The reasons for the long non-productive times are the complex process setup and the time-consuming quality controls after the process due to the long tube lengths. To reduce the necessary non-productive times, a sensory tool for combined skiving and roller burnishing will be developed and researched in the “SenSGlatt” project. Based on diameter detection and rolling force measurement, process data-based quality control over the entire bore depth and force-based process monitoring are being implemented for the first time. The resulting reduction in non-productive time is expected to significantly increase the overall productivity of the combined skiving and roller burnishing process.

Objectives

The aim of the project is to develop a sensory tool for combined skiving and roller burnishing for producing precise cylinder bores, as well as a method for force-based process monitoring and process-parallel quality control. The use of sensors and the process data obtained with them makes it possible to establish a correlation between the bore diameter and the rolling force on the resulting manufacturing quality of the bore. Based on the correlations determined and the availability of a setup aid, the time required for setup and quality control can be significantly reduced, thus enabling an increase in productivity.

Benefits

The project enables to assess the quality of the borehole based on the implemented sensors and the quality characteristics recorded in parallel with the process. The availability of a setup aid and knowledge of the interdependencies in the process simplify process setup.  Manufacturers of high-precision cylinder tubes thus benefit from simplified tool setup and significantly reduced quality control.

Approach

In cooperation with Ecoroll AG Werkzeugtechnik, a sensory tool for combined skiving and roller burnishing will first be developed and implemented. Key components include the setup aid, the sensory rolling stage for measuring rolling force, and a sensor module for capturing a digital shadow of the inner surface of the cylinder tubes. Once the sensory tool is available, testing will be carried out within real combined skiving and roller burnishing processes. The data obtained during testing will be used in the further stages of the project to establish the correlations present in the process. These will be used to develop an algorithm for quality control.

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Contact Jannes Vornkahl via email at vornkahl@ifw.uni.hannover.de or by phone at +49 511 762 18296