JPH039404B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a fluoroscopic inspection apparatus that uses radiation (for example, X-rays) to examine objects to be inspected to determine the presence or absence of internal defects, and particularly relates to a fluoroscopic inspection apparatus that uses radiation (for example, X-rays) to examine objects to be inspected to determine the presence or absence of internal defects. This invention relates to a fluoroscopic inspection device that automatically performs dispensing, etc.

The amount of X-rays transmitted through the object to be inspected varies depending on the type and density of the object to be inspected. Therefore, if the X-rays transmitted from the object to be inspected are converted into light according to the above-mentioned properties, and then imaged and displayed on a television monitor, it is possible to easily know the internal situation of the object to be inspected. It is possible to determine the presence or absence of defects in objects.

By the way, conventionally, when inspecting a large number of objects to be inspected using this property, a circular table whose position is positioned by button operation is arranged, and a plurality of objects to be inspected are first placed on the circular table by artificial means. Thereafter, the circular table is rotated by operating the button, and X-rays are emitted at this position to perform a fluoroscopic inspection of the object to be inspected. Then, the circular table is rotated by similarly operating a button, and based on the results of the fluoroscopic inspection, the inspected items are separated into good and defective items and transported to a predetermined location or container.

However, in the above-mentioned apparatus, the placing of the object to be inspected on the circular table and the carrying out of the object to be inspected after inspection are performed manually, so that the efficiency of the inspection work is undeniably reduced. In addition, since the person operating the button and the person carrying in and out the inspected object are different, the person carrying in the article may get his or her hand stuck in the rotating machine or the like due to incorrect button operation. moreover,
Although the selection of non-defective products and defective products is done by humans, there are drawbacks such as selection errors occurring at this time.

The present invention was made in order to eliminate the various drawbacks mentioned above, and mechanically performs all of the operations such as transporting a plurality of objects to be inspected, loading them into the table station section, and discharging objects to be inspected to determine whether they are good or bad in a fluoroscopic inspection device. It is an object of the present invention to provide a fluoroscopic inspection device that can be easily transported, carried in, taken out, etc. even when the dimensions of the inspected object change.

An embodiment of the present invention in which X-rays are used as the radiation will be described below with reference to FIGS. 1 to 11. Note that Fig. 1 shows the shape of the object to be inspected, Fig. 2 is a plan view of the entire device, Fig. 3 is a cross-sectional view of the AOB of the device in Fig. 2, and Fig. 4 shows the shape of the object to be inspected. FIG. 2 is an enlarged view of a portion into which an inspection object is transported. Furthermore, FIG. 5 shows a relay guide member etc. for installing the object to be inspected in the article transport section at a predetermined position on the table station section, and FIG.
7 is a conceptual diagram of the interior of the table station section, FIG. 8 shows the X-ray fluoroscopic inspection system, and FIGS. 9 to 11 are the objects to be inspected carried out from the table station section. It is a figure showing the composition of the payout part of. First, FIG. 1 shows the appearance of an object to be inspected 10, and its material is, for example, cast steel. That is, the object to be inspected 10 is a semicircular arc-shaped body having a width W, a radius R1 (2R1<W), and a depth H, and a recess 10b is formed in the width direction of the upper surface of the semicircular arc portion 10a. ing. The thickness of the semicircular arc portion 10a is t.

Next, in FIG. 2, reference numeral 20 denotes an article conveying section that conveys the inspected articles 10 in groups to a predetermined position. This article conveyance section 20 is installed on a belt conveyor 21 at predetermined intervals on the belt conveyor 21, and carries, for example, five objects to be inspected 10,...
A work guide 22 into which the inner inverted U-shaped portion 10c of each semicircular arc portion 10a is fitted, and this work guide 22.
a photoelectronic switch 23 that outputs a work presence signal when the inspected objects 10, ... guided by the belt conveyor 21 reach a predetermined position;
Furthermore, it is comprised of a carry-in pusher 24 that carries a plurality of objects to be inspected 10, . Note that the object to be inspected 10
There are a plurality of types with different dimensions such as W, H, R, and t. Usually, five objects of the same size are inspected, but several types of objects 10 of different sizes may be inspected in one day. Therefore,
In order to handle the conveyance of the inspected objects 10 having different dimensions, a work guide 22 on the belt conveyor 21 is used.
The radius of is the smallest radius R1 among the objects to be inspected 10.
It is preferable to make it according to the Further, the length L1 of the work guide 22 is desirably set to a size such that five or more inspection objects 10 having the largest depth H are closely arranged.

Next, the table station section 30 rotates and conveys the inspection object 10 carried into the carry-in station A from the article conveyance section 20 to the inspection station B, where it is subjected to X-ray observation using a television monitor or the like. It has the function of determining the presence or absence of a defect in the object 10, and further rotatingly conveys the object 10 to the unloading station C and unloading it. Therefore, this table station section 30 has a structure shown in FIGS.
As shown in the figure, for example, the rotary drive source 31
There is a rotary table 32 that rotates by 120 degrees, and a U-shaped A line storage room 33 is provided. In this X-ray shielding chamber 33, the upper parts corresponding to the carry-in station A and the carry-out station C are covered with transparent plates 34 and 35 so that the inside can be seen, and furthermore, the upper parts thereof corresponding to the carry-in station A and the carry-out station C are covered with transparent plates 34 and 35, and further have a certain radius from the center 0 of the rotary table 32. Place the central part of the table in a low place and take it out here.
is installed.

Next, a case in which the object to be inspected 10 is transported from the article transport section 20 to the transport station A in the table station section 30 will be described with reference to FIGS. 4 to 6. In this case, when the inspection object 10 in the article transport section 20 is pushed out by the carry-in pusher 24, it is fitted onto the mask 38 installed at each station A to C via the relay guide 37. will be transported to. At this time, even if the dimension H of the inspected object 10 changes, the outermost end of the inspected object 10 is always set at a position R2 from the center 0. The relay guide 37 is formed into a tapered shape, and its left end has the same size as the right end of the work guide 22, and its right end has the same size as the left end of the mask 38. Note that the left side entrance portion of the mask 38 is slightly tapered so that the object 10 to be inspected can be easily fitted therein. This mask 38 has an X-ray correction function that uniformly transmits X-ray energy to the object 10 to be inspected, and is made to match the shape of the object 10 to be inspected, and is shaped like an inverted U-shape of the object 10 to be inspected. It is closely attached to the inner surface of 10c. Therefore, a dedicated mask 38 that matches the dimensions of the object 10 to be inspected is used.
Therefore, the relay guide 37 and the mask 38 are always used in pairs depending on the dimensions of the object 10 to be inspected. For this reason, the relay guide 37 and the mask 38 are provided with an interlock mechanism as shown in FIGS. 5 and 6 a and b. That is, the interlock pin 37a is attached to the right end surface of the relay guide 37,
On the other hand, an interlock groove 38a is provided on the left end surface of the mask 38 facing this pin 37a. α and β are dimensions indicating their positional relationship. Therefore, if the values of α and β are appropriately selected, different relay guides 37 and masks 38 cannot be combined. In FIG. 4, 39 is a stopper that is directly attached to the right end of the mask 38 or can be positioned independently, and 40 is a retaining mechanism that keeps the left end of the object to be inspected 10 at the position R2 from the center 0. Therefore, the object to be inspected 10 can be easily fixed even if the object has different dimensions. Incidentally, a shielding plate 41 for X-ray shielding is erected on the rotary table 32 and the bottom plate on the outside of the table, as shown in FIG.

Next, the object 10 to be inspected is sent from the carry-in station A to the inspection station B by the rotary table 32. Here, the object to be inspected 10 is subjected to a fluoroscopic inspection using an X-ray fluoroscopic inspection system shown in FIG.
That is, in this X-ray fluoroscopy inspection system, an X-ray generator 43 and an imaging unit 44 including an image intensifier tube are installed facing each other with the object 10 to be inspected sandwiched between them, and the X-rays are obtained by being transmitted through the object 10 to be inspected. After the X-ray image is converted into a light image by an image intensifier, the image is captured by an imaging section 44 and displayed on a first television monitor 45. Also, the imaging unit 4
4 is temporarily stored in the image memory 46, and then displayed on the second television monitor 47 when the inspected object 10 arrives at the delivery station D. At this stage, the operator looks at the second television monitor 47 to judge whether the machine is good or not, and then operates a button or the like to operate a payout pusher or the like, which will be described later. It should be noted that the first television monitor 45 is used to monitor, for example, the position adjustment of the mask 38, and is not particularly necessary if it does not have that function. An X-ray shutter 48 is provided at the X-ray emission port of the X-ray generator 43, and when the rotary table 32 rotates, the X-ray shutter 48 closes to reduce leakage of X-rays during table rotation.

Next, the inspection object 10 is rotationally conveyed from the inspection station B to the carry-out station C by the rotation of the rotary table 32. Here, the article transport section 20
The inspected object 10 is carried into the carry-in station A by the carry-in pusher 24, and when the inspected object 10 reaches the carry-out station C, the retaining mechanism 40 is released by a cylinder (not shown). Thereafter, the inspection object 10 is sent to the delivery station D of the article delivery section 50 by the delivery pusher 36.

Next, the article dispensing section 5 operates as shown in FIGS.
As shown in the figure, the inspected object 10 is carried out by the carry-out pusher 36,... is placed on the non-defective product delivery chute 51, and the inspected object 10 is attached to an appropriate location of the device and placed on the non-defective product delivery chute 51. ,…
a stopper 52 that regulates the position of a stopper 52, and delivery cams 54a to 54e and cylinders 55a to 55 that operate in response to a signal from the above-mentioned button operation to deliver defective inspection objects 10, . . . to a defective product chute 53.
e-dispensing pushers 56a to 56e. The heads of the dispensing cams 54a to 54e are rotatably supported. In the figure, 57 is the object to be inspected 1 placed on the non-defective product delivery chute 51.
0, . One end is lowered and the non-defective inspected objects 10, which remain on the chute 51, are transferred to the non-defective chute 59.
This is the cylinder to be transferred to.

It should be noted that the distance R3 between the center 0 of the rotary table 32 and the rear end of the inspection object 10 carried into the delivery station D is always constant. This point is discussed below. Since the stroke of the carry-out pusher 36 is constant, the rear end of the inspection object 10 always stops at the R3 position. However, as the depth H of the inspected object 10 becomes smaller, l ₂ >
5H (see FIG. 9), a gap is created between the stopper 52 and the first object to be inspected 10. Therefore, the stopper 52 is configured to always move so that l ₂ =5H.

Next, an example will be described in which the object to be inspected 10 can be delivered using the delivery pushers 56a to 56e at the same location even if the depth H of the object to be inspected 10 changes. Now, in Fig. 9, if l1=l3 and T2<H, then the object to be inspected 1
0 can be delivered smoothly, but the object to be inspected 10
Each time the depth H changes, the payout cams 54a to 54
It takes time to change the pitch l3 of e. Therefore, in order to solve this problem, the pitch l3 and the width T2 of the dispensing cams 54a to 54e are modified. That is, as shown in FIG. 12, even when the depth H of the inspection object 10 changes from 40 mm to 60 mm, the width T2 of each dispensing cam 54a to 54e is 5 mm, and the pitch l3 is
If you set it to 47.5mm, the payout cams 54a to 54e
Just by shifting the position of the cams 54a to 54
e can reliably strike the side surface of the object 10 to be inspected and eject it.

Next, the operation of the apparatus configured as described above will be explained. First, the objects 10 to be inspected shown in FIG. 1 are placed on the work guide 22 on the belt conveyor 21 in groups of five, for example. In this state, when the belt conveyor 21 is moved by a drive source (not shown) and the inspected objects 10, . If it is determined that there is a workpiece based on this signal indicating that there is a workpiece, the belt conveyor 21
moves to convey the object to be inspected 10 to a predetermined position. Here, the carry-in pusher 24 operates to push the objects to be inspected 10,... to the table station section 30.
Transport it to loading station A. At this time, the relay guide 37 and mask 38 that match the dimensions and shape of the object to be inspected 10 are used. Therefore, the mask 38 covers the inverted U-shaped portion 10c of the object 10 to be inspected.
is firmly adhered to.

Next, the object to be inspected 10 on the loading station A,
... are transferred to the inspection station B by the rotation of the rotary table 32. Here, the object to be inspected 10,...
is subjected to X-ray fluoroscopic examination. That is, the X-ray generator 4
The X-rays emitted from the inspection object 10, . . . pass through the inspection object 10, . The imaging unit 44 converts the transmitted X-ray image into a light image and then outputs it as a video signal.
This signal is temporarily stored in the subsequent image memory 46.

Next, the object 10 to be inspected at the inspection station B is rotationally conveyed to the carry-out station C by the rotation of the rotary table 32. Here, unload pusher 3
6 operates to remove the inspected object 1 on the unloading station C.
0,... are sent to the dispensing station D. When the inspected objects 10, . Then, the monitor 47 determines whether the inspected objects 10, . By operating this button, the corresponding dispensing pusher operates and the dispensing cams 54a to 54
Rotate e. Inspected defective item 1
0 is transferred to a predetermined location or container via the defective product chute 53. The remaining non-defective inspection objects 10 are tilted downward by the non-defective product discharging chute 51, whereby the inspection objects 10 on the non-defective product discharging chute 51 are transferred to a predetermined place or container via the non-defective product chute 59. . In this way, 5
The objects to be inspected 10, . . . are separated into non-defective items and defective items and delivered.

Note that the present invention is not limited to the above embodiments. Although X-ray fluoroscopy was described in the above embodiment, radiation other than X-rays may be used. Further, although a first television monitor 45 and a second television monitor 47 are provided, the first television monitor 45 is not necessarily necessary. In addition, the present invention can be implemented with various modifications without departing from the gist thereof.

Since the present invention is configured as described above, it has the following effects.

(1) Since multiple objects to be inspected are simultaneously transported, loaded into the table station section, fluoroscopically inspected, and removed, it contributes to the efficiency of inspection work and can be carried out in a continuous manner with almost no human intervention. Since the process is completed, the danger to the human body is extremely reduced.

(2) In addition, since the fluoroscopic image can be temporarily stored in the image memory and monitored on the television monitor when it reaches the dispensing station, the accuracy of the inspection results can be improved.

(3) Next, even if the dimensions of the object to be inspected change, it is not only possible to replace only a few parts, but also to greatly contribute to streamlining and simplifying the work.

(4) Furthermore, conventional rotary tables were divided into 4 or 6 parts as shown in Figures 13 and 14, but if they were divided into 3 parts like this device, the number of masks would be reduced and costs would be reduced. It can be realized compactly by eliminating wasted space.
In other words, in the four-division system, the inspection system is far from the article entrance, but the inspection system is very close to the exit. In addition, in the 6-division system, up to the inspection system is the same as in the 4-division system, but the distance from the inspection system to the exit is even closer. Therefore, it is necessary to perform X-ray radiation and shielding accordingly, and there is a drawback that the number of masks increases.This apparatus can solve these problems.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIGS. 1a, b to 11 are diagrams showing an embodiment of a fluoroscopic inspection apparatus according to the present invention, in which FIGS. 1a and b are a front view and a side view of an object to be inspected, and FIG. A plan view of the entire device, FIG. 3 is a sectional view taken along the AOB arrow in FIG. 2, FIG. 4 is an enlarged view of the article loading section of the table station, and FIGS.
Figures a and b are diagrams for explaining the relationship between the relay guide and the mask shown in Figure 4, Figure 5 is a top view, Figure 6 a is a view taken along the line X-X in Figure 5, and Figure 6 is a top view. b is a Y-Y arrow view in Figure 5, Figure 7 is a diagram showing the interior of the X-ray shielding chamber, Figure 8 is a configuration diagram of the X-ray fluoroscopic inspection system, Figure 9 10 is a schematic plan view of the dispensing station, FIG. 10 is a side view of the dispensing pusher, FIG. 11 is a side view showing a partial cross section of the dispensing station, and FIG. 12 explains the relationship between the dimensions of the object to be inspected and the dispensing cam. Figures 13 and 14
Each figure is a diagram explaining a conventional division method of a rotary table. 10...Object to be inspected, 20...Article transport section, 21
... Belt conveyor, 22 ... Work guide, 2
4... Loading pusher, A... Loading station,
B... Inspection station, C... Unloading station, D... Unloading station, 30... Table station section, 32... Rotating table, 33
...X-ray storage room, 36...Export pushchair, 3
7...Relay guide, 38...Mask, 43...X
Line generator, 44...imaging unit, 46...image memory, 47...second television monitor, 50...
...Goods dispensing department, 51...Good product dispensing shoot,
56a-56e...Payout pusher.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1 Work guides are arranged at required intervals on the conveyor, and after a plurality of objects to be inspected are arranged side by side on these work guides and conveyed to a predetermined position, the first extruded body An article conveying section that pushes out the plurality of objects to be inspected using a a storage chamber, a relay guide that relays a plurality of objects to be inspected juxtaposed to the work guide pushed out by the first extrusion body and guides them to the mask of the rotary table; a radiographic inspection system that transports a plurality of objects to be inspected placed on a mask via the rotary table to an inspection station position by rotating the rotary table, and obtains a fluoroscopic image by irradiating radiation there; A carrying-out means for carrying out the plurality of inspected objects by a second extrusion body when the plurality of inspected objects reach a carrying-out station position by rotation of a rotary table after fluoroscopy; and this carrying-out means. a fluoroscopic inspection apparatus comprising: an article dispensing section for discharging a plurality of inspected objects carried out by the radiographic inspection system to different dispensing paths depending on whether or not the inspected objects are defective by the radiographic fluoroscopic inspection system; . 2. The fluoroscopic inspection apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the work guide is formed so as to fit into the smallest size of the plurality of types of objects to be inspected. 3. The fluoroscopic inspection apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the relay guide is tapered so that the inspection object entry side matches the dimensions of the workpiece guide, and the inspection object exit side matches the dimensions of the mask. 4. A fluoroscopic inspection apparatus according to any one of claims 1 and 3, wherein the relay guide and the microphone are coupled by an interlock mechanism. 5. The article dispensing unit is composed of a plurality of dispensing cams and a plurality of cylinders corresponding to each inspected object, and the cylinder and dispensing cam corresponding to the defective inspected object operate to discharge the inspected object. A fluoroscopic inspection apparatus according to claim 1.