Collmann launches tyre X-ray machine

ERJ staff report (DS)

Lubeck, Germany -- Collmann has designed and built a completely new passenger car, and truck and bus tyre X-Ray machine -- called  VerTiX -- that looks quite different from existing X-Ray machinery.

The new X-Ray machine has a similar lay-out and operation for passenger car tyres (13”- 24”) and for bus, light truck and truck tyres. (15”-27”). Collmann's standard X-Ray image quality with a pitch of 0.4 mm is also implemented in this design. Conveyors at the inlet and outlet assure in-line operation, while the operator operates in an air-conditioned cabin.

The testing machine is constructed on one baseframe and designed to fit in a 20 ft container and can be started up at site in one day. Collmann said the VerTiX unit loads, measures and unloads a single tyre in less then 20 seconds, even in mixed operation. According to Collmann, this yields a 20 percent higher capacity then machines currently available in the market.

Recently the in-house testing of the prototype VerTiX in Truck-execution was successfully completed, and this machine is available for customer testing.
At the end of 2008 the first machine in PCR-execution was sold to an Asian  customer who, said Collmann, is convinced of the high throughput and superior image quality.

The VerTiX can also be supplied with the automatic defect recognition software CI (CollmannInspector) which supports the operator to find defects in the tyre as kinked beads, off-center breakers, body ply misarrangements or foreign objects. Also real distance measurements -without the requirement of calibration- can be executed.