Trexel and Teratonics have announced an exclusive distribution agreement for Teratonics’s non-destructive testing solutions dedicated to the plastic injection molding market. Marketed by Trexel under the brand TrexelVISION, the technology enables in-line dimensional control and internal defect detection of plastic molded objects.
Worldwide partnership for distribution
“TrexelVISION is a natural fit within Trexel’s product portfolio. Our customers have a strong desire to see inside the parts they are producing with our foaming technology, and TrexelVISION brings a powerful solution to the market” says Brian Bechard, CEO & President of Trexel Inc., “as it opens a precise and fast in-line control opportunity.” This cooperation underlines Trexel´s approach to grow as the market leader in high tech foaming solutions in the injection molding business. “Teratonics benefits from Trexel´s long term market approach in high tech process equipment and experienced sales and service structures.” explains Dr. Uli Schmidhammer, CEO & President of Teratonics.
Fast, simple and accurate non-destructive testing
TrexelVISION is based on Teratonics’s internationally patented ultrafast terahertz technology for contactless non-hazardous in-line Non-Destructive Testing (NDT). TrexelVISION provides a solution for the production and process control in the most demanding smart manufacturing plastic industrial plants. TrexelVISION can perform dimensional measurements, like wall thickness measurement with micrometric precision, and detect internal defects such as bubbles, metallic foreign bodies, plastic in plastic inclusions, density variations, thickness variations, or surface cavities (hammer blows) in injection molded compact and foamed plastic parts.
New approach to interior inspection of injection molded parts – both foamed and compact
Trexel´s comprehensive foaming competence is based on long term experience of foaming injection molded parts. Due to pressure and temperature variations during filling, those parts sometimes show local variation in cell size and cell density. Until today, analysis of inner structures was possible only off-line, often with destructive testing or elaborate and hazardous methods. TrexelVISION allows a 100% in-line part structure analysis of trials or production and makes it easy to evaluate process stability. Additionally, this analysis can be used in solid molding to detect inner structure variations of fillers, voids or others which usually are not visible. TrexelVISION in-line checks also allow the detection of inner structure variations related to different process parameters and the wall thickness control. This helps to define allowed process tolerances. TrexelVISION will also prove highly beneficial in insert-molded applications, as the precise location of inserted objects can be determined using the technology.
TrexelVISION in-line or off-line functionality
The TrexelVISION system integrates a broadband source and detection system for the 0.1 – 1 THz spectral range in which many common polymer materials exhibit low or medium absorbance. On top of our breakthrough terahertz hardware, TrexelVISION includes an industrial control and acquisition unit with proprietary software for the scan motion and for data processing of the multitude of complementary information of the pulsed THz measurement. The system allows fast robotized scanning of 3 dimensional objects based on their CAD files. The communication can be adapted to many of the common robot types that are used in injection molding factories – including state of the art cobots. In consequence, the in-line control can often be directly realized at the exit of the molding machine with an already existing extraction robot.
