Heavy-duty trucks are witnessing an upward market due to the rapid growth of transport and logistics activities. These trucks are essential for business, including mining, construction, energy plants, and freight.
Manufacturers are seeking innovative heavy-duty trucks to increase their market share. The technologies that can aid in manufacturing and quality control are needed to shorten the time-to-market.
In the following case, we would find out how our 3D scanner can help design clay models for a heavy-duty truck cab and what benefits it can bring to the manufacturer.
Heavy-duty trucks with advanced features, lightweight structure frame, and wider availability are what the manufacturer seek.
The design of a heavy truck is considered from both the terms of engineering and art. Generally, designers make new modifications to provide a better vision for drivers, improve features, and boost safety and comfort.
When considered from the engineering design, it has to meet the requirements in terms of strength of the structure, the vehicle layout, and aerodynamics.
A famous Chinese construction machinery manufacturer SANY seeks to obtain the geometrical data of the truck cab by 3D scanning to build a clay model. By acquiring the 3D data of the existing truck cab, designers and engineers can draw insights from the data to create new products.
Based on the geometrical data, they can build a physical clay model to hold and try it. They can refine the style of lines, modify the prototype and achieve the perfect design.
They want to precisely capture critical information like dimensions so that the team can develop new products in line with the engineering requirements. Besides, the project aims to efficiently record changes of different design versions to guarantee optimal performance.
The following pictures show what the truck looks like. The large-scale truck is about 3500mm*2500mm, whose cab face features complex lines and curves. It has both dark and reflective finishes.
As the truck cab is large, it isn’t easy to scan the part efficiently and accurately. Its curves and finishes also pose challenges to the scanning task. Precise and efficient 3D scanning is beyond the limits of most measurement instruments.
The customer’s old measurement instrument takes an average of one day to scan the cab. In addition, it is not easy to carry the device around as it is heavyweight.
Furthermore, technicians need to spray powder to capture high-resolution 3D data for parts with dark and reflective surfaces. The scanner fails to capture point clouds of confined and hard-to-reach areas.
The customer were looking for a portable 3D scanner with high efficiency and accuracy.
Most 3D laser scanners in the market are portable and can conduct on-site scanning. These 3D laser scanners allow users to scan objects without spray powder. It’s because the anti-interference ability of the laser is robust. With the high efficiency of scanning, they significantly reduce the time for scanning.
The customer contacted Scantech to conduct on-site 3D scanning using KSCAN-Magic. The reasons why KSCAN-Magic stood out from its competitions are explained as follows.
KSCAN-Magic can scan large and small objects, which means that manufacturers can conduct various scanning tasks with just a single instrument.
With its integrated photogrammetry, KSCAN-Magic can 3D scan parts longer than 1.5 meters, delivering precise results. The built-in photogrammetry reduces errors by reducing the times needed to align different scans.
KSCAN-Magic is suitable for 3D scanning dark and reflective surfaces thanks to its robust algorithm. Due to its advanced algorithm, it performs well in capturing intricate details. The operator can get familiar with the device quickly as it is easy to use.
In this way, the customers don’t have to hire experienced metrology technicians, saving labour costs.
Its scanning area is as large as 1440*860 mm, much larger than its counterparts. KSCAN-Magic helped the technicians to save the trouble of sticking to many markers, thus saving time. Its scanning session is about 45 minutes, greatly enhancing the measurement efficiency.
With its robust performance in 3D scanning, KSCAN-Magic helped the customer accelerate the generation of precise geometrical data. The STL file ready to use allows the customer to build a clay model without starting from scratch.
With the easy transfer of scanned data, both design and engineering teams can use the tool and access the data to communicate ideas and thoughts. It improves productivity and reduces the costs of cross-team cooperation. All of these highlights help the customer shorten the time-to-market for new products to gain advantages over competitors.
