ZIM project ZF4042205SU6

Development of an interactive batch planning system for plasma nitriding plants

Plas­ma nitri­ding is a heat tre­at­ment pro­cess to impro­ve the sur­face qua­li­ty and pro­per­ties (strength, cor­ro­si­on resis­tance, wear) of metal­lic com­pon­ents. This pro­cess is used among other things for com­plex and high­ly stres­sed com­pon­ents in the auto­mo­ti­ve, aero­space and tool­ma­king indus­tries. The posi­tio­ning of the com­pon­ents in the plant is essen­ti­al for an opti­mal pro­duc­tion result in this com­plex, radia­ti­on-domi­na­ted pro­cess, sin­ce the tem­pe­ra­tu­re dis­tri­bu­ti­on and thus the ran­ge of the mate­ri­al pro­per­ties of the com­po­nent result from the geo­me­tric arran­ge­ment of the parts.

Until now, plas­ma nitri­ding sys­tems have been desi­gned by the sys­tem manu­fac­tu­rer for a defi­ned loa­ding situa­ti­on. For the plant ope­ra­tors, pro­cess-rela­ted qua­li­ty defects or unu­sed capa­ci­ties of the plant can ari­se during the start of pro­duc­tion or when the pro­duc­tion pro­gram is chan­ged. This leads to high spe­ci­fic com­po­nent cos­ts, espe­ci­al­ly with small batch sizes and/or fre­quent gra­de chan­ges, sin­ce a high per­cen­ta­ge of com­pon­ents with qua­li­ty defects is pre­sent and/or the plant capa­ci­ty is not opti­mal­ly used.

The aim of this rese­arch pro­ject is to deve­lop a novel inter­ac­ti­ve batch plan­ning sys­tem for pre­dic­ting the plas­ma nitri­ding result as a func­tion of the loa­ding situa­ti­on of the plas­ma nitri­ding plant. This is rea­li­sed by a sys­tem which cal­cu­la­tes the nitri­ding result (nitri­ding hard­ness depth) for a spe­ci­fic loa­ding situa­ti­on with parts of the plant befo­re char­ging. This cal­cu­la­ti­on allows the plant ope­ra­tor to adjust the loa­ding situa­ti­on with regard to the tem­pe­ra­tu­re dis­tri­bu­ti­on in the plant as well as the uti­liza­ti­on of the plant capa­ci­ty in order to achie­ve the best pos­si­ble pro­duc­tion result of the com­po­nent batch. The joint rese­arch pro­ject com­pri­ses the deve­lo­p­ment and expe­ri­men­tal vali­da­ti­on of the batch plan­ning sys­tem on the basis of phy­si­cal models.

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The rese­arch pro­ject with the fun­ding code ZF4042205SU6 is fun­ded by the Fede­ral Minis­try of Eco­no­mics and Ener­gy on the basis of a reso­lu­ti­on of the Ger­man Bundestag.