A Straightening Strategy for the Automobile Industries

Straightening of shafts and bars used in many machinery subassemblies, e.g., in steering, transmission, and drivetrain assembly, is required for improved performance. These components bend due to heat treatment for longer life or some other processes during manufacturing. In order to straighten them, either a manual process, where checking of the bend is done by an operator followed by the application of pressure in a press, or a fully automatic machine is used. The manual process leads to inconsistent product specifications and operator fatigue, whereas the general purpose fully automatic machines are not economic for a particular application, e.g., to straighten the drive-train shafts only. This paper presents an intermediate strategy, where a fuzzy logic based correction rule can be implemented in a PC based automatic set-up.