Consulting - SoundCam UK

CONSULTING

Making sound visible

The combination of 3 decades of acoustic experience, and the latest and best technology means that we can quickly identify and solve your acoustic problems at your locations in Europe. The acoustic camera is really a game-changing tool for rapidly identifying noise sources. Our experts have many years of experience with these and other tools, meaning that a site visit of more than one day is rarely necessary, even for fairly complex machinery and systems. We are also experienced in developing special applications for our customers.

CONTACT

For Example:

FINDING VEHICLE SEAL LEAKS

Finding vehicle seal leaks during end-of-line checks using our own custom ultrasonic speaker arrays and SoundCam ULTRA3 sensors. This reliable, proved method has enabled a prestige automotive customer to eliminate expensive and often damaging road-testing.

END-OF-LINE INSPECTION

Using a tailored rapid attachment body-mounted shaker system and our SoundCam 3.0 to find squeaks and rattles at the end-of-line inspections. Our special body-mounted shaker excitation system provides similar input to the slightly un-even road surfaces which excite squeaks and rattles in-vehicle. Road excitation is of short duration and inconsistent, as well as potentially damaging to new vehicles (stone chips) as well as creating unwanted mileage. Our shaker system is rapidly and easily attached, and provides constant excitation, allowing squeaks and rattles to be easily located with our SoundCams. Our prestige customer has a simple and faster solution which is more reliable and saves expensive re-working due to damage.

DETECTION DURING TESTS

Detection of cracks propagating during material tests. Our various customers in the Formula1 racing industry already use our SoundCam ULTRA3 for finding the smallest leaks in vacuum bags during part manufacture. Now they are using their precise noise location capabilities to pinpoint the start and progress of material cracks during stress testing, enabling them to optimise their structural integrity. Our SoundCams are commonly used with their built-in software and processing, but they can also be connected to a PC and the raw data can be streamed at up to 200kHz from all 176 microphones in parallel. This recording can fortunately be triggered, avoiding the need for long recordings. Then the raw data can be post-processed with our special software, providing analysis rates of 1000frames/second. This enables crack formation and propagation to be visualised.

PRODUCTION FAILURE DETECTION

Detecting cracked or torn parts during automotive body press production. One of our customers uses our technology with specially written analysis and reporting routines, to acoustically monitor for damaged steel sheet parts during pressing, at high production rates in real time. Our SoundCams measure the noise during each action of the press, and this is compared with the noise expected for a good part. We have found clear differentiators in the noise, and can identify cracked or torn parts directly after pressing. Our SoundCams provide directional noise detection to avoid confusion with noise from adjacent concurrently running presses. This saves our customer significant costs by not producing scrap parts that are found much later in the manufacturing process.

ENVIRONMENTAL NOISE

At a small woodworking factory in Huddersfield, we located a noise source which was disturbing neighbours. This multi generation family business employs around 25 people, and was threatened with closure due to the noise disturbance. It was feared that the very old factory might need a new roof to prevent the noise, which would have been outside the financial possibilities of this small business and would have meant closure. A quick look with our SoundCam showed the source as being a compressor located on the outside wall, which could easily and cheaply be enclosed.

The high frequency/leak specialist