デジタルツイン技術を用いた手動注湯作業における注湯流量の可視化

抄録

  This study aims to establish a quantitative evaluation system for manual pouring work in the foundry industry, which is carried out in many foundries with high mix low volume production. The skilled workers in this work play a critical role in ensuring product quality. However, the skills required for the manual pouring work are tacit and difficult to transfer, as the pouring process has not been explicitly evaluated. To address this issue, we propose a pouring flow rate visualization system based on the digital twin environment of the manual pouring work. In the proposed approach, the wireless type crane scale and the inertia measurement unit (IMU) sensor are mounted to the equipment used in the manual pouring work for performing undisturbedly the pouring work. The digital twin environment of the pouring work can be realized by applying the measurement data from the crane scale and IMU sensor to the mathematical model of the pouring process. The ladle’s geometric parameters required for the pouring process model can be derived by scanning the practical ladle with the 3D scanner and extracting the model parameters using a 3D-CAD and an application programming interface (API). Furthermore, the outlier and noise involving in the measurement data from the IMU sensor can be suppressed by a Hampel filter and a finite-impulse-response (FIR) type zero phase filter. The efficacy of the proposed approach has been verified through experiments on the manual pouring work by skilled and novice operators, demonstrating its potential as a foundation for quantitative skill evaluation and knowledge transfer in the casting industry.