bar coding and engraving on railway wheels

[arunmrao]

I am just curious to know if there exists a commercial product which could enable bar coding and engraving on the railway wheels as they come out of the moulds. Recently on a works visit I noticed, these being written manually with high temperature chalk sticks,but these get erased during heat treatment and subsequent cleaning.Also mix up of the lots happens leading to confusion.

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[PSE]

My first thoughts are scribing lasers, a google search will bring up numerous companies that produce them, or some sort of indexible metal stamp that can imprint the appropriate code into the wheel. I am not sure though how successful bar coding would be as the code might effectively change due to material shrinkage as the wheel eventually cools. This would disrupt the code spacing/line widths and potentially lead to misreads or false results. Something I would recommend looking into with any solutions provider.

Regards,

 

[samjessen]

Why not make the lot number part of the mold?

 

[tygerdawg]

You could also do pin marking.

TygerDawg
Blue Technik LLC
Advanced Robotics & Automation Engineering

http://www.bluetechnik.com

 

[arunmrao]

Thanks for the different insights. Providing number in the mold may not be possible as the molds are reused.I failed to consider the contraction of hot metal which will influence bar coding. Scribing lasers or pin marking may be the other options available.

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