An innovative project to develop a lightweight exhaust system for a luxury sports car, led by the Institute for Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering (AME), has leveraged Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence equipment for quality control checks.
The project, undertaken at the Institute for Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering (AME), initially examined ways of halving the weight of the complete cold end of the exhaust system.
Coventry University’s metrology department used the ROMER Absolute portable measuring arm and G-Tube software to perform measurement and inspection tasks on a variety of parts and sub-assemblies.
A second phase, supported by Innovate UK, involved developing a production ready solution that delivered the product technology to market.
As part of these investigations, the metrology team also employed the ROMER Absolute arm to inspect parts in a robotic welding cell on the AME shop floor.
The Institute for Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering (AME) is a collaboration between Unipart Manufacturing and Coventry University.
It currently has 60 budding engineers studying on its unique ‘live manufacturing’ degree courses.
AME’s head of metrology, Trevor Toman explained: “Through the successful completion of the project, the consortium has proven the ‘art of the possible’ in exhaust light-weighting; namely the removal of almost 50% of the weight from the cold end assembly.”
The project has also effectively demonstrated how pre-market prototypes could be manufactured in a production representative environment.
Hexagon and AME are set to host an open house event at the Institute later this year with a range of workshops and product demonstrations, including portable measuring arms and new Tube Shaper software.
Assisted by R&D successes such as the lightweight exhaust, the Institute for Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering is also building a strong reputation for commercialising new innovations and has six other projects either finished or currently underway to pioneer new prototyping and powertrain solutions.
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