The crankshaft, as the most essential component of a car engine, undertakes the dual mission of power conversion and output. It can be said that the dimensional accuracy and structural stability of the crankshaft directly determine the power output, smoothness of operation, and overall service life of the engine, and are of utmost importance for quality control in automotive factories. This issue focuses on the Ford Chihuahua engine factory to understand how high-precision 3D scanning can accurately control crankshaft dimensions and positional deviations through digital means, achieving efficient, high-quality, and standardized dimensional quality inspection of engine crankshafts.
The Ford engine factory located in Chihuahua, Mexico has developed into a benchmark enterprise in the global automotive manufacturing industry since its establishment in 1983. This modern factory, covering an area of 100 hectares, has over 2400 employees and is dedicated to the research and production of high-performance diesel engines. As the main global production base for Ford diesel engines, this factory mainly produces 6.7-liter power stroke engines for Ford heavy-duty trucks (F-250, F-350, F-450), commercial vehicles (F-650, F-750), and Land Rover Range Rover models.
Part 01
How to accurately detect the dimensional deviation of engine crankshaft forgings?
The crankshaft production at the Ford Chihuahua engine factory adopts the "external procurement forging parts+internal precision machining" mode. However, in the actual incoming inspection process, the factory team found that these forged parts had dimensional deviations, which caused the machining fixtures to be unable to achieve correct alignment.
This small deviation can cause production risks: on the one hand, positioning deviation can easily lead to collisions between expensive machine tools and workpieces, causing equipment damage; On the other hand, some components cannot complete the established mechanical processing procedures due to a lack of sufficient machining allowance.
Due to the lack of accurate and comprehensive three-dimensional dimensional data as support, the engineering team finds it difficult to accurately determine the root cause of the problem. Is it a concentricity issue, excessive material, or a specific forging defect? These issues not only caused production delays, but also prevented the factory from providing feedback on improvement requirements to forging suppliers.
Traditional crankshaft inspection mainly relies on coordinate measuring machines, which require transporting heavier crankshafts to dedicated inspection stations during inspection. This not only consumes time and effort, but also poses safety hazards such as workpiece collision and personnel operation. The Ford Chihuahua factory urgently needs a solution that can directly bring precise detection capabilities to the workshop site.
Part 02
Accurately adapting to workshop conditions, creating a digital quality inspection plan for crankshafts in 3D first
The Ford Chihuawa factory has chosen to first use a 3D FreeScan Combo+metrology grade dual light source handheld 3D scanner, combined with professional testing software, to build a complete set of digital metrology testing solutions, directly landing high-precision quality inspection capabilities on the production line.
FreeScan Combo+Featuring exceptional portability, the entire machine weighs only 620g and is compact and lightweightAdapting to various complex working conditions in the workshop, inspectors can directly complete crankshaft data collection in the parts receiving area and next to the machine tool, completely eliminating the tedious process of long-distance transportation of heavy workpieces and avoiding safety hazards and time-consuming issues.
Equipment equippedBlue laser+VCSE infrared dual light source, four scanning modesIt can quickly adapt to the data acquisition of complex curved surfaces, fine structures, and deep holes of crankshafts,Can collect 5.37 million points of cloud data per secondIt only takes a few minutes to complete the complete crankshaft structure scan, and the detection efficiency far exceeds traditional coordinate measuring equipment.
In terms of accuracy, the device strictly adheres to the VDI/VDE 2634 and ISO 10360 international measurement standards,The highest scanning accuracy can reach 0.02mmFully meet the stringent requirements of crankshaft machining.
At the same time, the solution is equipped with professional 3D inspection software, which quickly generates dimensional deviation data by comparing the scanned physical data of the crankshaft with the original CAD model. Xianlin 3D has also customized specialized standardized operation manuals for the Ford Chihuawa factory, unifying scanning processes and operating standards to reduce detection errors caused by manual operations, thus seamlessly integrating this new technology into the factory's quality management system (QMS).
Part 03
Eliminate defects from the root and achieve comprehensive inspection and quality management of incoming crankshaft materials
Relying on the high-precision 3D scanning technology of Xianlin 3D, inspectors import the three-dimensional data of the crankshaft into the detection software and align it with the numerical model to generate visualized chromatograms, which can quickly locate the material defect areas at key positions such as the crankshaft counterweight. This confirms that the root cause of production problems is forging defects in the parts, rather than internal processing technology problems in the factory, providing accurate data support for supply chain rectification and process optimization.
At present, the Ford Chihuahua factory has achieved comprehensive verification of incoming crankshaft materials to ensure that only parts that meet the size requirements can enter the processing stage, and provide clear basis for supplier rectification and optimization through inspection reports to eliminate forging defects from the source.
The cooperation between Xianlin 3D and Ford Chihuawa factory this time not only succeededSolved the quality control pain points of engine crankshafts, effectively avoided risks such as equipment loss, workpiece scrap, and production delays, and reduced production and operation costsThis further confirms the application value of high-precision 3D scanning technology in the field of automotive manufacturing. Xianlin 3D will continue to deeply cultivate the automotive manufacturing scene, using high-precision digital technology to help car manufacturers improve quality and efficiency, reduce costs and control risks, and empower the high-quality development of intelligent manufacturing in the automotive industry.
In addition, the three-dimensional data obtained from digital detection can be archived for a long time, establishing a traceable quality management system. If common deviations are found in the product during sampling, the production process can be immediately traced, welding parameters can be adjusted or fixtures can be improved in a timely manner to ensure that each product meets the standards and ensure consistency in production quality.
When industrial manufacturing enterprises need to conduct one-stop digital inspection of products, we recommend using the FreeScan Omni wireless integrated handheld 3D scanning measuring instrument from Lintianyuan. It adopts the third-generation wireless scanning technology and is equipped with a self-developed industrial metrology 3D detection module. It does not require the connection of a computer or power cord, and can independently complete "3D scanning+3D inspection" with one device. At the same time, the FreeScan Omni has a maximum accuracy of 0.02mm, a scanning speed of 8.35 million points per second, five measurement modes, and is compact and portable, suitable for various industrial measurement scenarios of different sizes.
