Metallurgical apparatus – Means for cutting solid metal with heat – e.g. – blowpipes – Means for removing surface material – e.g. – scarfing
Patent
1980-04-10
1982-06-29
Stallard, W.
Metallurgical apparatus
Means for cutting solid metal with heat, e.g., blowpipes
Means for removing surface material, e.g., scarfing
B23K 708
Patent
active
043369235
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
DESCRIPTION
1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an apparatus for automatically detecting surface defects of a steel material such as a steel piece or a cast steel piece having inferior surface conditions and for automatically removing such defects according to the results of the detection.
2. BACKGROUND AND PRIOR ART
Heretofore used methods for automatically detecting surface defects such as surface flaws and cracks in a steel material such as a steel piece or a cast steel piece are, for example, an ultrasonic testing method, a magnaflux method, and an eddy current method. These testing methods are highly automated and, accordingly employed widely in surface inspection of mass production of, for example, semifinished steel. The detection ability of each of these method varies with positions and conditions of the surface detects. In the case where the surface conditions of the material to be inspected are very bad, any of the above methods considerably decreases in the detection ability. In inspection of semifinished steel, such as slabs and billets, whose surface has a thick layer of oxides and is rough, the inspection ability is unavoidably reduced unless the layer of oxides is removed and the surface to be inspected is smoothed. Accordingly, application of the prior art automatic flaw inspection methods was limited to test pieces of relatively good surface conditions. For example, in a cast steel piece such as a slab and a billet produced by continuous casting, periodical wave-like marks (oscillation marks) characteristic of continuously cast pieces can occur. Heretofore, it was almost impossible to automatically detect such wave-like marks directly or without smoothing the surface of the cast steel piece to be inspected.
The surface defects such as surface flaws or cracks in the steel piece or cast steel piece, when processed into, for example, steel plates or pipes in the succeeding steps, often turn out to be serious defects in the products. Accordingly, the surface defects in the steel pieces or the cast steel pieces must be removed prior to further processing. The surface defects such as surface flaws in a steel material are removed usually by scarfing. In continuous casting, a step for scarfing the entire surface layer of the cast steel piece is added as a pretreatment step to the surface defect inspection.
In the prior art surface inspection, as described above, the pretreatment step of the surface of the piece to be inspected, the inspection step and the defect removing step were performed individually in separate stations and, accordingly, required a rather large amount of time, labor and space. Further, some defects could pass the inspection without being detected and the reliability of the prior art inspection was not high.
Recently, an improved surface inspection method for carrying out pretreatment, inspection and scarfing operations in one step was developed. However, this method in which the entire surface of the piece to be inspected was scarfed as a pretreatment was not efficient and not suitable for inspection of steel materials such, for example, as continuous cast steel pieces in which surface detects tend to appear periodically in specific regions of the surface.
3. Disclosure of Invention
An object of the present invention is to provide a highly efficient and reliable automatic inspection apparatus capable of detectig surface defects such as flaws and cracks occurring periodically in specific regions of the surface of a steel material such as a steel piece or a cast steel piece in the production process thereof and removing such surface defects according to the results of the inspection.
The apparatus according to the present invention comprises a detection head including a detector probe and a scarfing torch, a drive mechanism, for moving said detection head for scanning along a predetermined path, and a control device for controlling the operation of said detection head and said drive mechanism.
The detection head has a construction in which the scarfing torch is
REFERENCES:
patent: 2283932 (1942-05-01), Jones
patent: 4243436 (1981-01-01), Engel
Hiroshima Tatsuo
Sakamoto Takahide
Shiraiwa Toshio
Stallard W.
Sumitomo Metal Industries Ltd.
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