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3D Scanners help Grovely Wood speed up their production time

The BENNINGHOVEN company was founded by Otto Benninghoven in 1909, in Hilden, Germany and was set up to produce gear wheels and machine tools.

The company diversi�ed into the �eld of industrial combustion technology in the 1950’s. In the 1960’s the company entered into the asphalt industry and in 1970 a new fabrication facility was set up in Mulheim/Mosel. Another huge expansion took place in 1990 with the addition of a manufacturing plant in Wittlich. Today the Benninghoven group is fabricating in two locations in Germany and one in England. There are 600 people employed by Benninghoven today.

This year the company are celebrating their 100th anniversary and the company have chosen to celebrate in style, by entering into the automotive industry.

Project: Design and build a car to celebrate the companies 100th anniversary.

Alistair Davis from Benninghoven started looking at various options on which company to use for the design and development of the new car. After a lot of research he decided on Coventry University automotive faculty, due to their reputation, and their desire for a totally new concept. They also needed a team that could start immediately and could deal with a fast project turnaround time.

The time allocated to produce the �rst two cars from concept to completion was only 18 months!

Chris Johnson and Mark Varney from the automotive faculty at Coventry University became in charge of this huge project, Chris Johnson being the chief designer and Mark Varney overseeing the development work.

Whilst Coventry university could take care of the design, other companies had to be approached to

help with the development and manufacture.

Benninghoven decided to use an existing vehicle’s chassis, �oor pan & power train. This meant that the exterior & interior trim, and the Body in White and chassis of the chosen vehicle had to be 3d scanned to achieve the required alignment.

This is where 3D Scanners UK were asked to get involved ………

www.3dscanners.co.uk Tel 03330 300 300

3D Scanners UK proceeded to 3d scan the body in white and chasis of the donor vehicle at Advanced Vehicle Solutions Coventry site.

Every part was scanned and datum points were probed. This data, once aligned in PolyWorks software, would indicate to us exactly where the new surfaces would sit on the body in white. The scanning of the body in white took 8 hours. A laser arm scanner was used for accessibility.

IMMerge was then used to turn the points into a polygon mesh and IMEdit, used to trim the (overscan) edges of the panels back to create perfect edges. The polygon model could then be aligned to car line in PolyWorks IMInspector Module

Once all the data had been collected, it was then processed at our 3D Scanners UK site in Coventry.

Innovmetric PolyWorks software, IMAlign module was used to organise & process the raw point cloud data. This software allows large data sets to be imported and aligned, picking the best point cloud data to create the best model.

www.3dscanners.co.uk Tel 03330 300 300

3D Scanners help Grovely Wood speed up their production time

Using PolyWorks Inspector Software to analyse vehicle body clashes.......

Once the clay had been scanned, the data was processed and aligned in the same workspace as the scan of the donor vehicle and its body in white. This was to allow us to see if there were any clashes between the clay and the body in white.

The clay concept car was scanned by 3D Scanners UK at the automotive faculty of Coventry university, using a laser arm scanner.

The screenshot below shows the car inPolyWorks being aligned. The di�erent colours show the scan data stripes.

The screenshot below that shows the car onced meshed in polygon wireframe mode.

www.3dscanners.co.uk Tel 03330 300 300

3D Scanners help Grovely Wood speed up their production time

The bonnet needed re-designing so that there was no clash. The bonnet grill had to be modelled up in SoliWorks. This was done by

When the meshed polygon models of the donor vehicle and the concept car were aligned in Innovmetric PolyWorks Inspector Module, it was clear that there was a clash at the front of the bonnet (as shown in the screenshot above).

importing the polygonal model of the hand �nished concept (previously scanned with the car, pictured above right) and using it as a template to create the new model around it. The solid model is geometri-cally correct for future manufacture.

The screenshot (top)shows the �nished model, positioned within the iges surfaced bonnet and fender that had previously been rapid surfaced in PolyWorks.

www.3dscanners.co.uk Tel 03330 300 300

3D Scanners help Grovely Wood speed up their production timeThe bonnet grill had to be modelled in SolidWorks.This was done by importing the polygonal model of the hand �nished concept (previously scanned with the car, pictured right) and using it as a template to create the new model around it. The solid model is geometrically correct for future manufacture.

The screenshot (above left) shows the solid model extrusions and surface used to create the bonnet grill.

The screenshot above shows the �nished model, positioned within the iges surfaced bonnet and fenderthat had previously been rapid surfaced in PolyWorks.

The exhaust surround also needed modelling in SolidWorks . The polygon model from the scan data was imported into SoildWorks. The screenshot belowshows the stl polygon model and the new cad modelin solidworks.

The screenshot (above), taken within PolyWorksInspector software, shows the aligned polygon models of the clay concept car and the donorvehicle.

The rear of the concept car needed re-designing dueto the spare wheel housing that sits right at the back on the donor vehicle’s body in white. To clear this area the design of the car needed to be brought outwards.

www.3dscanners.co.uk Tel 03330 300 300

Body in White polygon model

Surfaced model & Body in White polygon model

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Screenshots above showing virtual assembly of iges surfaces.

3D Scanners UK had now completed their work, and the cad �les were sent to Four Masters Ltd for tooling. The Photographs below show the �nished car.

The images above show the virtual assembly in Innovmetric PolyWorks Software.

Polygon Model with rapid surfacing in progress