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Quality Inspection

Providing valuable insight into your products

Physical Digital® provides detailed inspection of both CAD and Drawings, providing a full range of easy-to-understand reporting.

The GOM measurement systems used by our team deliver the full-field scan data and sufficient resolution needed for genuine full-surface inspection, allowing the delivery of complete surface colour-deviation maps, GD&T inspection back to drawing FAI and LAI and trend analysis across multiple-part inspection.

Quality in our results comes from the quality of our methods. Our team at Physical Digital is extremely diligent when it comes to working practices and procedures and we are proud to have achieved a UKAS certification for ISO 9001:2015 for our outstanding Quality Management System. 

Inspection to suit your requirements

With a wealth of experience across multiple industry sections, our quality inspection team is able to provide bespoke inspection reports dependent on your level of requirements, providing you with the valuable information that will result in improved quality, whilst at the same time reducing project timing and cost.

The completion of 3D scanning using GOM ATOS metrology systems ensures that all data captured is traceable back to international dimensional standards, providing you with the confidence to make critical quality manufacturing and project decisions for your products. By keeping data capture and inspection all within one piece of software, results in our customers gaining access to truly 3D inspection results.

Every element of the inspection is based on points captured, using the weight of statistics to determine the true position of geometric elements. Environmental factors that could affect the measurement are recorded and are accessible. Alignments are part-driven, eliminating any possible errors.

Inbuilt industry-specific analysis tools such as draft analysis for casting, flush gap analysis for automotive and aerofoil inspection for aerospace blade and vane applications enable our team to provide comprehensive inspection services across all industry sectors.

More on our quality inspection services

Inspection for reverse engineering

When reverse engineering an existing component or assembly it is critical to understand your starting point. Basing a design on a single example risks that sample being a poor representation of the original design. Where possible, a sample of parts should be measured and inspected to ensure that the resultant nominal part is as close to the original design as possible. For these activities, Physical Digital conducts trend analysis to either identify the part most representative of the given sample or create a ‘Golden Mesh’ which is a combination of the full sample filtered and averaged to best represent the part as originally designed.

With a part identified, full geometric inspection is carried out to provide a comprehensive set of dimensions from which a new design-intent model can be created. We use our wealth of experience in design for manufacture and design for assembly to determine the difference between deviation from design through manufacture or use and design intent providing functional models for use in the future.

Manufacturing and quality inspection

Physical Digital provides a comprehensive quality inspection service utilising the fully traceable inspection software native to our GOM systems. Inspection back to CAD can take advantage of the full-field surface data allowing surface deviation colour maps across the whole surface in addition to GD&T and the point-wise inspection associated with single-point CMMs. While the inspection requirements are still determined by an inspection drawing, our inspection software is PMI capable allowing CAD-driven comprehensive 3D inspection. Batch inspection delivers powerful insights into manufacturing processes. Inbuilt trend analysis allows us to provide process capability statistics (Ppk, Cpk) while retaining the ability to interrogate the 3D data on an individual basis. Using one software house throughout maintains unbroken traceability from capture to analysis. Physical Digital provides this functionality using GOM Inspect,  in addition to delivery of more the traditional .pdf and .csv formats that can be integrated into customer-specific quality management systems.

Inspection for investigation

When prototyping or investigating, inspection requirements are not always clear. Unlike traditional point-wise inspection, full-field data capture does not require prior knowledge or prior inspection planning. The data can be captured and subsequently interrogated, with the form driving the inspection. Destructive testing often involves plastic deformation and fracture mechanics that leave shapes requiring high-resolution, full-field measurement to accurately define their geometry.

Simulation verification

In addition to multiple-part inspection, Physical Digital can provide large-scale deformation analysis. By conducting sequential point-wise inspection the behavior of a part can be interrogated under different loading conditions, the results of which can be used to inform and validate FEA analysis.

Aerofoil inspection

Recognising the power of high resolution, full-field data over freeform surfaces, GOM have a suite of aerofoil inspection tools available within their software which Physical Digital puts to good use allowing us to comprehensively inspect the following:

· Profile mean lines

· Profile centroid

· Profile twist

· Flow inlet/exit angles

· Chord line (bitangential, axial, max)

· Stagger angles

· Camber angles

· Blade pitch

· Throat area/sectional distances

Where material allows, our team of skilled engineers integrate CT data to provide analysis of internal cooling passages. Often alloy technology outstrips CT scanners ability to penetrate the surface and we use our extensive design experience to create custom fixtures and cutting paths allowing us to gain visual access to capture and inspect internal geometry with minimal loss of material or impact on shape.

Related case studies

What is Hybrid Modelling?

The benefits of automated 3D Scanning

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To find out how our 3D scanning services carried out by our expert engineers can add value to your business and transform your project call us, email or fill out the contact form.

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