Industrial computed tomography for reverse engineering applications

Computed tomography is an excellent device for generating 3D data of complex parts. It allows a complete scanning also of the inner geometry of a complex parts. Since this new measuring technique first was used mostly more for material testing, it was identified as a powerful device for dimensional inspection in the recent years. There, well-known CAD methods, which are currently available in commercial software tools, can be used for a complete and accurate measuring of automotive casting parts - especially parts with a very complex geometry as cylinder heads. The current paper will cover a new reverse engineering application based on a CT measurement of a cylinder head, as it was required by an industrial partner of the authors. The goal was the surface extraction of the water channels of an aluminum cylinder head for the use in flow simulation. By using that example the paper will illustrate, how even complex industrial problems could be solved by using computed tomography and by applying modern CAD tools.