Potential of Radar Based Measuring Systems in Hot Forging

Hot forging processes and process chains provide components, which meet highest demands due to mechanical properties. A wide range of applications in different industries like oil and gas, automotive and aviation are based on such processes. As those processes are very productive unfavorable process conditions and unnecessary reject or rework are a strong issues and still not solved for industrial scale production. One key challenge is to generate geometrical information of the workpiece. The geometrical characterization of hot forged parts is usually carried out in cold condition resulting in an extensive time delay to processing. Information about the part geometry during processing and right after processing - in hot condition -- is not accessible. An approach to address this are radar based measuring systems. Those systems have specific characteristics like sufficient accuracy and robustness which qualifies them for measuring tasks under rough conditions typically occurring during forging processes. In the paper, different use cases for the application of radar-based measuring systems are identified and analyses based on laboratory scale experiments.