TPT May 2024

TUBE INSPECTION & TESTING

Custom measurement and control systems

the design department. As digital support, the design experts had access to queries and formulas in Microsoft Access – for example, to determine the final dimensions. GEMÜ

GEMÜ is a manufacturer of valves and fittings for industrial applications. It fabricates custom valve, measurement and control systems. To ensure that the processes between sales, design and production flow smoothly and quickly, the company relies on Tacton Design Automation and integration solutions from configuration specialist Lino GmbH. GEMÜ valves also handle a wide range of requirements in other industries: depending on the application, they can be controlled precisely, withstand chemically aggressive substances or are easy to clean. Combined with other factors such as connection type or RFID chips for traceability, customers can choose from thousands of products with millions of different variants. In the previous processes, this diversity presented a challenge: customers filled out a requirements sheet to the best of their knowledge, detailing parameters such as medium, flow rate and connections. In order to define a specific product group and suitable components from this data, the responsible sales representatives needed a great deal of technical expertise and production knowledge. Nevertheless, their product pre-selection had to be checked for plausibility and technical feasibility by

Modern machines rely on comprehensive geometric data from 3D models

Concurrently with the rollout of a design automation solution fully integrated in Solidworks and the joint creation of the rule set, Lino also handled the training of key users. They were challenged to use Tacton directly in the production system so that they could rapidly experience for themselves how automation relieves them of recurring and time-consuming design tasks. High turnover valve models were also prepared for sales in a timely manner. Lino implemented the Tacton Configurator solution together with add-ons developed in-house. This combination not only provides sales with meaningful 3D models and drawings for presentation to the customer, but also a rule-based product configuration, price and quotation functionality.

had also been using Solidworks for years, among other things to create 2D drawings for customer presentations. 3D views for visual product verification or simulation were not possible in Solidworks, and the CAD data could only be used for the CNC milling machines in production. GEMÜ invests in modern production machinery and expands its machine park in line with the company’s growth. Modern machines rely on comprehensive geometric data from 3D models. This meant that the time was right for advanced, end-to-end data utilisation – and process automation that relieves the burden on design and sales. As an established solution for design automation in the Solidworks environment, Tacton Design Automation was a logical choice. And the Tacton specialists from Lino GmbH were already well known to GEMÜ’s project heads.

GEMÜ www.gemu-group.com

Inspection data in one place with BK Connect TEST and measurement specialist HBK has launched an upgrade for its innovative software platform, BK Connect®, providing greater scope within many of the tools, such as Indoor Pass-by, which helps automotive manufacturers ensure their vehicles comply with strict, pass-by noise regulations. providing users with more streamlined access to search the repository for data using metadata, then map the metadata from the indexed file to metadata used in BK Connect according to BK Connect’s data model objects: Project, DUT, Test, Test Condition, Setup and Result.

simpler to correlate measurements and analyse the results. And the RMP profile from a tacho probe or CAN bus can now be shown together with the spectrogram. BK Connect is an integrated user centric software solution for multi-channel data acquisition (with industry-leading LAN-XI hardware), data processing, data management and reporting. Its structure is based on user-configurable workflows that provide users exactly what they need when they need it. This reduces the risk of error and the need for customer specific development – while maintaining the full feature richness of a modern analysis platform.

Other additions to BK Connect Structural Dynamics include the possibility to save residuals calculated during the modal parameter estimation in mode tables and use them for FRF synthesis. Updates in BK Connect Array Analysis enable users to calculate particle velocity for SONAH measurements and – in playback mode – export the results from all mesh points to a UFF file or Microsoft Excel in a single operation, making it

Improvements to indoor pass-by include imports where users can define the applicable standard for each test and the ability to export import tyre noise correction data according to the ISO362 3 standard. The SPC Validation sub-task now helps engineers fine-tune condition number thresholds before performing full pass-by SPC calculation. A new ‘Team Search File Import With Mapping’ task has also been added,

HBK www.hbkworld.com

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MAY 2024