This question reached wenglor in connection with the quality inspection of an assembled steel pipe section. The customer wants to ensure that certain connecting elements made of non-ferrous metal (e.g. aluminum, brass, copper or stainless steel) are correctly installed – even though they are under a layer of plastic.
The special requirement:
The sensor must detect non-ferromagnetic materials while ignoring the steel of the pipe string itself. At the same time, the detection must work reliably through the plastic layer.
The ISQ250NK00A3 inductive sensor is ideal for this challenge. Unlike classic inductive sensors, which only detect metal in general, this sensor type has been specially programmed for selective metal discrimination.
This makes this sensor perfect for applications such as detecting an aluminum or stainless steel fastener in a steel pipe – even if there is a plastic cover over it.
The way it works can be easily understood using a real application:
In the food industry, for example, the presence of an aluminum sealing foil under a two-millimeter-thick plastic lid is monitored. A welding field resistant inductive sensor with correction factor 1 detects this foil reliably and with an unchanged switching distance.
Even at high conveyor speeds, this works precisely and stably thanks to the high switching frequencies. This principle can be directly transferred to the current application:
Here too, the sensor detects a non-ferrous metal under a plastic layer without being influenced by the surrounding steel.
The ISQ250NK00A3 is the ideal solution for reliably detecting non-ferromagnetic fasteners in a steel pipe string – even under a plastic cover.
It offers:
This allows the installation of fasteners to be monitored automatically, contactlessly and reliably.
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