Description

Advantages

Technical

Coating thickness gauge is a non-contact and non-destructive measurement systems to check the quantity consumption of the material on coating lines and bring cost reduction and productivity increase to operations.

The system continuously monitors the quantity parameter (Coating thickness) of the coated material on both side of the sheet. The deviations from preset target values are instantly detected allowing immediate corrections to the production process to maintain uniform coating. All relevant measuring results are evaluated and displayed graphically on a monitor and documented by hard copy.

More than 150 systems installed worldwide are impressive evidence of the market acceptance and capability of our products and services.

SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE

The modern coating measurement system, designed to be flexible and with open software architecture without compromising on system reliability, availability and ease of maintenance: JASCH XRF-3000 system fulfils all these needs using the latest in electronic technology and proven heavy duty mechanical components.

The system is designed to concentrate on the most important task of accurate and stable measurements of the coated material. The sensors are mounted on a high precision scanner platform which carries the sensors and scans across the sheet continuously. The scanner has all the function control and signal conversion/processing electronics included in a side panel. All measurement data from scanner is sent digitally via RS485 link to a PC based system which processes all measurements, generate profiles, implements calibration tools, display maintenance data and machine operations.

The Operator interface is implemented on another PC based system which is connected to the processing system through Ethernet link. The Operator interface is based on Labview™ which is highly user customizable and adaptable to varying mill requirements. Comprehensive production reports are generated for storage and hard copy.

The whole set of profiles and measurement parameters from the processing system are available through an OPC server for mill wide access.

SENSORS

For all coating machines the basic measurement required is the coated Weight of the material which can be Zinc, Aluminum or the Paint coats. The measurement is displayed as GSM (or g/m2) which is the basic parameter the operators use to ensure that their production is always with in the acceptable weight range. The measuring principle is based on the Florescence produced by reflection from the measuring material on which radiation emitted by the X-ray source is projected. The coating weight is determined by sensing variations in the energy radiated by the surface of the measured and known pure form of sample value.

Both sensing head contains source and the detector each, which ride above the moving sheet without any friction mounted on air bearings of special patented design maintaining an ultra stable cushion gap thickness thus providing accuracy level of that of contacting sensors but without contact type problems.

SCANNER

The scanning platform (O-Frame) carries both the sensors and continuously scans back and forth across the sheet being measured. The sensor carriage is continuously moving, and throughout its scan both the sensors must remain aligned. Scanner precision and stability are crucial for obtaining proper measurements from the sensors. The O-Frame Scanner is designed to be very strong, reliable and at the same time accurate. The design is based on double I-Beam structure welded together to form a box construction. The resulting O-Frame structure is very strong, rigid and mechanically stable. It is only with this rigid structure that makes it possible to mount sensors and maintain high precision alignment during scanning back and forth across the sheet. During the manufacturing process the top and bottom sensor carriages are precisely aligned to within ± 0.5mm in x, y and z directions. The materials used are chosen for precision and reliability under heavy duty daily use. With the rigid O-Frame design this precision alignment is mechanically locked into system. The carriage movement is on heavy duty linear motion system based on ball bearings with many times over rating.

GAUGE OPERATION :

The operator has overall control of measuring system via workstation attached with keyboard. The display on the screen allows the operator to have access to all the measuring system features via an user friendly operator control interface thus assuring easy operation. Moreover, the coating weight profiles, production reports, system errors / diagnostics also appear on the operator screen.

GAUGE STANDARDIZATION :

The standardization is initiated either manually or automatically under the control of system computer on a predetermined time basis. The measuring heads are automatically sent off the strip and made to measure on a reference sample, disturbing influences such as drift and dirt on sensor windows are thus eliminated.

GAUGE CALIBRATION :

The calibration is done on the measuring system during manufacturing. Also, recalibration is done during commissioning of the system at customer site. For calibration purpose, customer provided coated samples are used.

PRINTER STATION :

The measuring unit comes with colored ink jet printer station. All the displayed information on monitor can be also be printed. Moreover, the detailed coil reports can be printed as & when required.