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The 2006 Formula One season marked Super Aguri F1 Team’s debut, so it is unsurprising that the team did not win any championship points. This year is a different story with the team’s leading race driver, Takuma Sato, currently on four points after coming eighth in the Spanish Grand Prix and sixth in Canada. Just as important as Sato’s driving skill has been the better mechanical reliability of the SA07 race car and its improved aerodynamics, resulting in greater speed around the tracks.
Some of the credit can be claimed by Metris which, as official metrology equipment supplier to Super Aguri F1 Team, manufactured and installed an LK co-ordinate measuring machine (CMM) large enough to accommodate a complete race car chassis. In addition, Metris has supplied 3D laser scanning heads and software to upgrade and increase the performance of a pre-existing Faro portable arm and a smaller Mitutoyo CMM.
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Metris manufactured and installed an LK CMM, large enough to accommodate a complete race car chassis
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Super Aguri F1 Team’s financial constraints as a start-up team in the highest level of motorsport, allied with a need to utilise high-end metrology equipment to compete effectively in F1 races, was a fundamental dilemma. The original measuring equipment was able to cope in some areas.
However, the larger structural elements of the car could previously only be inspected using the Faro arm, which was capable of no more than ±30 microns measuring accuracy, insufficient for the needs of the Super Aguri inspection team. Moreover, comprehensive checking of profiles and surfaces was impossible to achieve by single-point probing on the Mitutoyo or Faro machines in the very short lead times between races.
So there was enthusiasm among the directors of Super Aguri F1 when a partnership was established with Metris in the close season. Within this partnership Metris supplied an LK CMM with 2,500 x 1,000 x 800 mm
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The higher accuracy of CMMs allows the use of the Metris XC50 and LC15 laser scanner probes, both of which are compatible with Renishaw motorised probe heads and auto exchange rack.
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measuring envelope capable of ±2 microns volumetric accuracy. One of their main interests was also to equip all three measuring machines with Metris laser scanning heads and software to speed the inspection of features and surfaces.Commented Tim Nolan, Inspection Manager, SAF1 Team base at the Leafield technical center, “We are constantly trying to cut tenths of a second off lap times and to achieve that, we need to measure body panels and mechanical components to within a few microns. We could not achieve this on larger items such as a whole carbon fiber body shell.
“Another difficulty we had was an inability to capture data on freeform surfaces quickly to reverse-engineer external body parts after wind tunnel tests, as often the original CAD data was not available from the model shop, or the part had been modified by hand to optimize its aerodynamics.
“CAD to part analysis of complex surfaces such as carbon fiber patterns for which we did have the data was similarly problematic, as digitizing a surface by probing discrete points was not fast enough at the frenetic pace that we operate.”
The Metris Model Maker D laser scanner on the 7-axis Faro arm has a wide, single stripe and high frame rate for fast scanning, with the Metris Kube Scan software rendering the shape in real time on the screen. Filtered scan data is exported to Metris Focus Inspection software for comparing the collected point cloud data with the original CAD model and generating inspection reports. This all speeds the complete process.
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The higher accuracy of CMMs allows the use of the Metris XC50 and LC15 laser scanner probes, both of which are compatible with Renishaw motorised probe heads and auto exchange rack. The XC50 uses three laser stripes to view a component from different angles simultaneously. It scans complex geometries and measures features at high speed to high accuracy in full 3D, making it especially useful for scanning holes, slots and pockets as well as gap and flush between body panels. The LC15 is used for scanning smaller parts where the highest need for accuracy and detail is required.
A typical scanning application is the modeling of the foam for the race car seat, which is bespoke to the driver and has to fit his form perfectly. Mr Nolan said that in the past this took two days using single-point probing, whereas the same job is now completed in one hour.
He went on to explain how a touch probe and a laser scanning head can be used sequentially to inspect a part on a CMM, the results being joined automatically by the Metris software into a single scan or inspection report. For instance, holes and machined features on a chassis are checked using the
±2 micron volumetric accuracy of the LK CMM in touch probe mode.
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The XC50 uses three laser stripes to view a component from different angles simultaneously.
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The Metris ModelMaker D laser scanner has a wide, single stripe and high frame rate for fast scanning
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Analysis of CMM data results in
CAMIO Studio
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The laser scanner, with ±8 micron accuracy, then takes over to capture the profile, resulting in significant time savings and an improvement in accuracy compared with using the Faro arm.
Now that the Metris equipment is in place at the SAF1 Team factory, the metrology infrastructure matches that of the top F1 teams. To have the right equipment in place is not only beneficial to make better and faster racecars, it is also an excellent platform to showcase innovative technologies such as the Metris’ optical metrology solutions to the commercial automotive manufacturers.
Download: Super Aguri F1 upgrades metrology for 2007 season (PDF file)
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