Eight global service centres and over 50 sales and service partners around the world - these are the key figures for the YXLON service in industrial X-ray range. With service modules and upgrade packages adapted to all customer needs, the company guarantees a consistently high system availability and thus their profitability.

YXLON International is the leading global provider of X-ray systems for industrial applications. Whether manually, semi-automatically or fully automatically operated, this is the right solution for almost any application. Quality is the top priority: for the test systems as well as for the products of the customer.

Through many years of experience and innovation, YXLON was able to gain the trust of renowned producers in the automotive industry, aerospace, the electronics industry and other fields. Since January 2007, YXLON International has been part of COMET Holding AG.

Reliable detection of casting defects with X-ray technology

Even with the greatest of care, the risk remains that, due to the complex interactions in the casting process, defects which are not visible may arise. X-ray testing, however, can be used to identify these. The company YXLON supplies systems to detect such flaws quickly and safely. In addition, with its years of experience and expertise in the field of testing, inspection and project management, the company offers foundries a stable partnership.

Quality assurance for all types of castings

For all casting procedures using materials such as iron, aluminium, magnesium or zinc, casting defects such as porosity, pore and bubble formation and hot cracks, dimensional changes and inclusions may occur.

The quality inspection with YXLON X-ray systems also enables rapid and secure checking of large quantities of items for such defects. Cast parts with a defective cast structure can therefore be removed from the manufacturing process at an early stage. It is also possible to infer the casting quality from the defects detected and increase productivity by introducing suitable measures.

A Computed Tomography (CT) can provide important additional information. With the help of CT, for example, internal structures and residual wall thicknesses can be accurately determined even for complex components. This information is essential especially in the qualification of prototypes.

For safety-related components in particular, the determination of residual wall thickness according to the casting process and the post-processing of serial products is highly important as it provides information about strength and thermal conductivity of the material. Once a tomography has been carried out on a component with YXLON computed tomography systems, the information is available for different analyses.

In eight application centres worldwide, YXLON has access to the entire range of X-ray technology and can offer solutions for film replacement by digital radio copy, fully automatic fault detection in X-rays and CT analysis of test objects of micro-CT to CT with linear accelerators as a service.

Y.HDR-Inspect – Durchleuchtungsprüfung mit „hochdynamischer Radioskopie“

YXLON's highly dynamic radio copy (HDR) has revolutionised the fluoroscopic screening test in the past four years. Details are visible in thin and thick sections of the test in motion and without constant adjustment of the X-ray parameters.

The term "dynamic radio copy" means that on the one hand there is a high dynamic detector range in relation to the depth resolution, and on the other hand there is a high dynamic range with respect to the refresh rate. Only with the high refresh rate is radio copy, i.e. a test in motion, reasonable.

A prerequisite for HDR is a low-noise rapid detector with high dynamics in conjunction with an optimally calibrated software and fast filter algorithms.

Structural noise occurring at high doses, caused by different grey levels of the pixels at the same dose, can be prevented by a multi-stage gain calibration and the correction of non-linear detector pixels.

Both the complex pixel correction and the band-pass filter-like algorithms require a very efficient implementation in software code to be used smoothly at 30 frames per second.

The filter effect can be adapted perfectly in small steps to the material to be tested and the wall thickness. This technology is available as standard in the X-ray systems Y.MU2000 D and Y.Multiplex.

Production testing of bulk products - with ADR

With modern software fully automatic defect recognition (ADR) is possible without the assistance of an operator. Objective test results are created by the system and may be reproduced at any time. Automatic Defect Recognition (ADR) is used in serial production.

The software draws its image data from an X-ray system that is able to handle very high volumes. YXLON offers for this application wheel inspection, robot test systems and tyre inspection. Due to the ADR software inspection decisions are always taken according to the same objective criteria. They are thus reproducible and occur without user intervention. YXLON offers special software packages for this.

Test castings with robots – fully automatic

Fully automatic x-ray systems with robots are now integrated as standard testing devices in the production process. Modern foundries work in three shifts, seven days a week. To keep pace with these production capacities, the X-ray systems Y.MU56, Y.MU59 (and the system optimised for X-pistons, Y.MU56K) have been developed. In all systems, robots from different manufacturers are used.

This is because the diversity of anomalies within castings is enormous. But the quality and reliability of these parts must meet strict specifications. Y.PXV5000 is the heart of the X-ray systems that provide fully automatic control and image analysis during inline X-ray examination.

Different manufacturers - different norms – different standards

International norms and standards are reviewed every few years. With a team of experts, YXLON actively contributes to the revision of relevant X-ray and CT standards and provides systems that meet these standards and norms. In addition, due to its many years of experience, the company can offer systems which include the personal specifications and test specifications of "major players" such as major car manufacturers.

X-ray testing as service

YXLON offers a wide range of X-ray and CT technology for the eight application centres worldwide. For optimal analysis and evaluation, these systems are always on the cutting edge of technology. Detailed test records according to requirements are naturally a part of this. This extensive information has enormous benefits for calculation as realistic ROI calculations can only be made in this way.

Reliable business partnership in 4 steps

The top priority is to support every client in their efforts to effectively and efficiently implement the quality requirements of their customers. YXLON performs as a consultant in four steps through this process:

• Step 1, definition: Needs of businesses and customers are first defined precisely in order for these to be fulfilled as well as possible/or exactly at a later point.

• Step 2, recommendation: The YXLON portfolio offers probably the widest range of standards for each type of X-ray and CT examination.

• Step 3, the return on investment: ROI is an important factor and requires complex calculations, based on many criteria. YXLON provides its partner with comprehensive data on this in order to calculate it successfully and discuss internally.

• Step 4, future security: Partners obtain full support for years to come, so that the solution they obtain is also future-proof.

Experience, global presence and technology therefore make YXLON a reliable partner during the entire test process.

Frank Lindner