Measurement of lengths for determining the outside diameter, wall thickness or inside diameter of tubes which, must be maintained to close tolerances. A mandrel of tungsten carbide having a coaxial projection of knife-edge width is postioned so that its transverse dimension intersects the beam and is parallel to the plane of the beam. A first length is measured between the end of the beam and the nearest point on the projection. A tube is mounted on the projection with its its longitudinal axis parallel to the longitudinal axis of the mandrel and its inner surface engaging this. A second length is measured from the end of the beam and the nearest point on the tube. The outside diameter is measured on the shadow of the tube produced by the laser between the shadow of the nearest point and the shadow of the most remote point from the end of the laser beam. The wall thickness is equal to the first length less the second length. The inside diameter is the outside diameter less twice the wall thickness. An advantage of this invention is that the measurement is carried out with only one instrument instead of two as required by prior art.
An optical measuring machine is provided with an operating board which is provided separately from the main body of the optical measuring machine and which inputs and/or outputs measuring information and a retaining portion for removably retaining the operating board on a side surface of the main body. The operating board is ordinarily retained on the side surface of the main body, thereby enabling the reduction in the space for the installation of the measuring machine and the improvement of portability. When the operating board mounted on the side surface of the main body is difficult to use due to the positional relationship with an object of measurement, the necessity to set complicated measuring conditions or the like, it is possible to use the operating board in the state of being removed from the main body.
The width measuring apparatus according to this invention includes a light emitting element, a pair of light receiving elements, a measurement support table for fixing them and calculating device, where a pair of partial laser beams of the laser beam from the light emitting element which are not projected over a traveling elongated object to be measured are received by the light receiving elements, and a width of the elongated object calculated from the received light quantities of the pair of partial laser beams. The width measuring apparatus according to this invention further includes a single light emitting element, pairs of light receiving elements, a measurement support table for fixing and calculating devise, where pairs of partial laser beams of the laser beams from the light emitting element which are not projected over traveling elongated objects are received by the light receiving elements, and widths of the elongated objects are calculated from light quantities of the received partial laser beams. Based on the apparatus, it can continuously and optically measure the width of the object in a non-contact fashion with a less amount of measuring error, and measure the widths of the objects at a less expensive cost, securing a working space.
A method and apparatus for measuring and determining certain parameters of an overclad tube measures the OD and the wall thickness of the tube at a plurality of longitudinal points and a plurality of angles at each point or longitudinal position. A laser device measures the OD and an ultrasonic transducer measures the wall thickness. The inside diameter of the tube at each point is determined by subtracting the wall thickness from the measured outside diameter. From the data then obtained, the straight through internal clearance of the tube is calculated by determining a plurality of bow vectors which represent the deviations of the tube inner diameter from a least squares fit.
In order to control the perpendicularity of a component (10) such as a nuclear fuel pellet, this component is placed upon a support plane and measurements are taken, by means of two pairs of laser micrometers (A1, A2; B1, B2), of the distances separating diametrically opposed generators of the component from a rod of reference (T, T'), at two different levels and in two measuring planes (P, P') perpendicular to each other. From this is derived a maximum out-of-true perpendicularity of the component being controlled.
An apparatus and process for expanding polymeric tubing including a bubble of trapped gas within the polymeric tubing. The tubing is expanded by creating a pressure differential between the inside and outside of the tubing such that the pressure inside the tubing is greater than the pressure outside the tubing, thereby causing the tubing to expand. It is possible with the present invention to compensate for loss of gas pressure, thereby increasing the amount of tubing which can be expanded without ceasing production and restarting the process.
