Applying Structured Light on Cylinder Straightness Detection Using Break Line Method

Abstract

Generally after a cylindrical steel bar is made from hot forming process, its contour will look like ‘U’ or ‘wavy’ topography. The preformed steel bar after steelmaking process needs to remove the outside oxide layer by lathe or peeling machine (commonly known as stripping). As a consequence, the deformation of steel bar will cause subsequent problems, such as eccentric rotating of steel bar as the lathe is running. Although it is necessary to remove the oxide layer, the deformation will increase waste materials. To prevent the problems, a straightening machine is usually used to straighten the cylindrical steel bar before the pickling process. However, most current straightening machines cannot measure cylindrical steel bar contour on-line instantly. This study proposed a test method for measure the contour of a large cylindrical steel bar based on multi-line structured light and machine vision. Break line method were performed to measure the contour of the cylindrical steel bar. The experimental result shows that the measurement error is in the range of ±0.4 mm after calibration. The study result concludes that the proposed method can be applied to straightening machine for real-time online measurement to improve straightening efficiency.