Bond Seam Inspection

Customer Need

Adhesives are increasingly being used as a joining technology for automotive body panels including edge and non-edge joints. Total accumulated length of glue lines can reach hundreds of meters per automobile body. Similar to other automotive joining processes, adhesive bonding may not provide 100% process reliability. Testing is required to identify areas with lack of adhesive as well as misaligned bond lines. Traditionally, this has been accompished only through time-consuming and costly destructive testing.

Glue line and seam inspection for automotive body panels

BHGE Inspection Technologies provides a non-destructive method for conducting bond seam inspections. The Bond Seam Scanner is easily clamped on body panels joined by a seam or other adhesive bonding process. The design enables the array to adopt to contoured parts commonly used in automobile designs. A spring-loaded encoder wheel provides a stable inspection platform and tracks the sensor position for bond lines up to 32 mm wide. A protection foil minimizes the need for couplant and facilitates manual scanning. The innovative Bond Seam Scanner linear array design ensures inspection spatial resolution and detection resulting in an easily interpreted visual image of the presence of adhesive allowing the operator to evaluate the overall width of his bond seam and identify where adhesive requirements are not met. Custom array probes can be developed to inspect similar adhesive applications in automotive and other industrial segments.