Handling of engine blocks

The customer is a supplier of complete x-ray stations to Automotive companies. The robot has to pick up an engine block and place it in the x-ray station. The x-ray station has to check the engine block for damages in the casting or bores.

SCHUNK suggested the customer a servo-electric gripper swivel unit. The unit consists of a parallel gripper and a servo-electric swivel unit. The mass of the engine block is approx. 110 lbs. The stroke of the gripper is 100 mm per jaw with a total grip force of 2,100 N. This allows the secure grip of the engine block during the complete operation.
Rotation of the engine block is done through the synchronized servo-electric swivel unit during the clamping operation of the jaws. The finger length from the guiding in the gripper housing up to the rotating axis is 500 mm. The engine block is gripped by white plastic inserts, as these don’t interfere the x-raying process.

The customer can now grip the engine block and pass it through the x-ray process in one operation. This means considerable time savings and increase of the number of handled engines / day.