The project LeakFree is expected to increase the efficiency of the quality monitoring and management processes that currently run at fuel tank production factory at Floteks. The project is supposed to meet the overall objective by meeting the hardware and software challenges that automatic inspection,i.e. not visual inspection, of the fuel tanks on the production factory require. This includes automatic setup of the fuel tank for test, communication with system and finally communication with the IT infrastructure of the factory ERP.
There is no standard / common regulation for the leakage detection system of fuel tanks in automotive industry. So, the most important aim of this Project will be to persuade various OEM’s on one single system, meaning LeakFree system, which will elevate many weaknesses of the conventional systems used.
Major factors in automotive industry are security, protecting the environment and quality assurance. Therefore, suppliers to the industry must adjust themselves to the high quality assurance systems. There are many different methods of detecting leakage from the tanks. However, the complexity and high cost of some systems make it not feasible. Although leakage detection of fuel tanks is a major issue in automotive industry, there is no consensus among the OEM’s how to detect leakage.
The LeakFree project aims to develop a low cost leak detection system that will be fast, accurate, reliable, reproductive, with data acquisition to the supplier’s QC and logistics ERP system, making the data produced traceable. It should also be automated within mass production environments. The solution will be primarily developed for automotive industry and their fuel tanks suppliers. The system will be feasible to buy and to use for the suppliers to the OEM’s.
The LeakFree system’s philosophy is to listen to the bubbles evolving from pressurized tank dived under water using hydrophones. The main challenge of the project is to have a system that is working in industrial factory environment with noise levels that are not only high, but also inconsistent depending on the activity. Environmental sound should be filtered out.
A software has been developed to control the LeakFree inspection process. The software communicates with the PLC system controlling the developed automated mechanical system to perform the physical actions of the test, place the tank in the pool, pressurise it, and remove the tank from the pool once the test has ended. In addition, the LeakFree software communicates with the ERP system of the company in order to receive the testing parameters (recipe) for each tank, and then send the inspecton results to the ERP system for storing them along the whole history of the tank. The whole inspection process is controlled by a user friendly Graphical User Interface (GUI) and it was implemented in Turkish as well.
NI DAQ h/w has been assembled, hydrophone sensors purchased and a pool constructed for the tests. For this:
1) An automated, diving system of the tank to be tested into the pool has been constructed.
2) Automatic welding systems for plastic parts, to weld to the other plastic parts, sensors and accessories airtight to them, was developed. The welding parameters are to be adjusted to achieve parts accepted as “airtight”. The development of the automated spin welding in Floteks is also a side product of this Project.
