RATIS
Inspection systems for rails and billets
Railway rails and billets are essential and safety-relevant components of the transport infrastructure. During production in the rolling mill, these components are subject to strict quality control. Our RATIS inspection systems offer a family of automated, high performance systems for non-destructive testing of rails and billets during the production process, taking your quality assurance process to the next level. Integrated into the roller conveyor, the systems use eddy current and ultrasonic technologies to inspect for surface and volumetric defects.
RATIS for Rails
For surface crack detection on rails, we use eddy current array sensors that are adapted to the contour of the rail and equipped with ceramic wear shoes. These sensors automatically inspect rails for longitudinal, oblique and transverse defects. Mounted on adjustable, self-guiding holders, they are pneumatically applied to the rail as it passes through the system from the roller conveyor. A quick-change mechanism ensures short set-up times when converting the system to other rail types.
To inspect the rails for internal defects such as inclusions, laminations or cracks, we apply an ultrasonic testing system for rails with fully parallel phased array inspection technology. Using phased array probes in a water-filled immersion tank, the system can automatically switch to new rail profiles with minimal changeover time. This allows flexible and fast non-destructive testing of different rail types at the highest resolution. The supplied control and data evaluation software automatically evaluates the rails according to international or internal standards.
RATIS for Billets
The inspection of billets for surface cracks is carried out using eddy current array sensors equipped with ceramic wear shoes. These sensor arrays check the test material for longitudinal, oblique and transverse cracks both on the flat billet surface and on the edge radii. All sensors are mounted on adjustable and self-guiding brackets with a quick-change mechanism and are pneumatically positioned on the billet to be inspected as it is transported through the system by the roller conveyor integrated in the machine frame. The machine design thus enables short set-up times when changing to other billet types.
For the inspection of square or rectangular billets for internal defects such as inclusions, laminations or cracks, RATIS is available as an ultrasonic inspection system with fully parallel phased array technology. By using phased array probes mounted on motor-driven axes in combination with a water-filled immersion tank with automatically controlled input and output gates, the system can be converted to new billet profiles in a very short time via the PLC control system. This enables flexible and fast non-destructive testing of different billet types in the production roller conveyor with maximum resolution. The control and data evaluation software evaluates the billets according to self-defined or international standards.