Coupling hardness testing set-up times reduced

A suite of purpose made fixtures has reduced setting up times to seconds in hardness testing automotives drive couplings.

A suite of purpose made fixtures by Indentec has reduced setting up times to seconds in hardness testing automotives drive couplings.

For a VW engine plant in Germany, the five fixtures are designed to position different couplings automatically ready for a series of Rockwell hardness tests at prescribed points.

Eliminating any need to orientate specimens to reach test points, they have cut two to three minutes off the preparation time for each test sequence.

As well as minimising operator time and effort, the improvement is said to have enhanced the monitoring of the heat treatment processes, an invaluable benefit in a plant producing a coupling every two seconds.

Installed on the table of an Indentec digital testing machine, the fixtures employ profiled seatings, stops, screw adjustment and locator plates to ensure that couplings can only be presented for testing in the correct way.

Several tests are carried out both internally and externally on the specimen, the coupling being indexed manually between test points.

To enable hardnesses deep inside couplings to be determined at three points, the bench mounted machine is equipped with a lengthened nose mounted diamond indenter capable of reaching into exceptionally narrow gaps.

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