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measuring point - no. 4

The companyspecializes

in the design and manufacture

of valve train systems for racing

car engines ...

Del West Europe Measures up to Formula 1 Standards

Racing with...

It is a paradox that Del West EuropeSA, a world leader in supplying valve train com-ponents to virtually all Formula 1 engine manu-facturers, is located in Switzerland, a countrythat manufactures no cars.

“It was a deliberate decision,” says BrunoEngelric, Del West Europe’s managing director,”For one thing, Switzerland is centrally locatedwithin Europe giving us easy access to our auto-motive customers in France, Germany and Italy.For another, the Swiss-made label is synony-mous with precision and quality.”

Del West Europe SA, which started with just oneemployee in 1996, now has more than 90 em-ployees handling everything from design and

process planning to manufacturing and final in-spection in a 3,000 square metre facility inRoche.

The company specializes in the design and man-ufacture of valve train systems for racing car en-gines. Its goal is to use the latest material tech-nologies for making lightweight but highly rigidcomponents that operate with minimal recipro-cating mass in high-speed car engines. For thisreason, titanium and aluminium alloys are usedto make valve train components such as valves,valve guides, camshafts, keepers and pneumat-ic spring systems. By optimizing the design ofmatching components, Del West engineers canimprove the performance of valve trains to en-able ever higher engine speeds without the lossof valve control. This results in an improved

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measuring point - no. 4

torque curve over the entire engine RPM range -crucial for the performance of racing engines.Thus, through its focused concentration on valvetrain development, Del West has acquired an in-timate understanding of the influence of this crit-ical system on engine performance.

Reverse Engineering in Design

To remain at the forefront of tech-nological innovation, Del West is constantly in-vesting to improve product design and manufac-turing control processes.B&S Messtech SA, today Hexagon MetrologySwitzerland, has partnered with Del West sinceits inception and supplied a Leitz PMM-C 700coordinate measuring machine (CMM), threeDEA CMMs and two non-contact measuringsystems.An interesting aspect of the Leitz PMM-C 700 isthat this machine works with PC-DMIS as well asQUINDOS software.Del West engineers work with PC-DMIS, a CAD-based interactive graphics software packagefrom Hexagon Metrology, for reverse engineeringapplications. The Leitz CMM captures the profileof a part either through point-to-point or scan-ning measurements and PC-DMIS software thenconverts this data for use with a CAD program togenerate drawings. This makes it very easy tomake copies of parts and cuts down develop-ment cycle times.While the Leitz PMM C-700 is mainly used for in-specting ring cages for ball bearings and engineblocks, the QUINDOS software also enables the

inspection of complex geometric forms such asthose found on racing engine camshafts.

Unmanned Inspection Shifts

Once parts are designed then it isup to the manufacturing department to imple-ment processes aimed at meetingtight tolerances as well as avoidingdefective parts from leaving theplant. All components are 100% checkedfor visual aspects and critical di-mensions on certain componentssuch as valves, keepers and me-chanical spring retainers are also100% inspected. For this purpose,the company has three DEA coordi-nate measuring machines (2 Globaland 1 Mistral), which work on atwo-shift basis.

One DEA Global CMM is used to in-spect parts during the second shifton an unmanned basis. About ahundred parts are positioned in apallet placed on the CMM granitesurface and the inspection cycletakes about six minutes per part.By the next morning all parts are in-spected. This is a good example ofbuilding the skill and eliminating anyoperator influence from the inspec-tion process.

The bonus is that the measured da-ta is stored since it is the compa-ny’s policy to provide 100% traceability on allcomponents from receipt of material to shipmentof product.The company has designed its own special pur-pose inspection machine for measuring the di-ameters of the rollers and then classifying thesame into different diameter groups for assem-bly. This is a fully automatic process where therollers are fed into a stacker and then inspectedwith pneumatic sensors.In fact, Del West firmly believes that a necessaryelement of any successful design is the ability toproperly test that design in an application. Thecompany has also built special purpose ma-chines to test valve trains, both pneumatic aswell as coil spring based, for system perform-

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measuring point - no. 4

ance and component reliability. The companyactively teams up with partners like HexagonMetrology Swizerland to introduce the latesttechnologies in dimensional measurement. “Weare honoured to be able to work with Del West inmeeting their quality goals,” says AndrewBarclay, Hexagon Metrology Swizerland manag-ing director, “In the process, we are also learningabout the true potential of our systems.”

Many spectators of Formula 1 races see thecompetition in terms of big names and a sheertest of human endurance. Few think about theendurance tests imposed on engine compo-nents such as the valve trains. A Formula 1 en-gine, however, can be compared to a Swiss me-chanical watch with a number of complications*making up the whole system. In this context, DelWest can be considered as one of the makers of“complications” for Formula 1 engines. Del West is content to stay in the backgroundbut knows that today’s innovations will allow itsFormula 1 customers to celebrate with the tradi-tional bottle of champagne in tomorrow’s victorycircle. �

* In the jargon of the watchmakers’ masters, a “com-

plication” is every possible function besides the display

of hours, minutes and seconds by a manual charge

movement. Although the calendar or the automatic

charge are quite frequent, they are to be considered as

“complications”. Additional examples of complications

are the chronograph, moon phases, perpetual calen-

dar functions, etc. …Few think about

the endurance testsimposed on engine

components …

Hexagon Metrology

Hexagon Metrology is part of Hexagon Measurement

Technologies, a newly formed business area within

the Hexagon Group. Hexagon Metrology includes

leading metrology brands such as Brown & Sharpe,

CE Johansson, CimCore, CogniTens, DEA, Leica

Geosystems (Metrology Division), Leitz, PC-DMIS,

ROMER, Sheffield and TESA. With an installed base

of more than 50,000 CMMs, over 7,500 PCMMs,

millions of hand-held instruments and over 30,000

licenses of the popular PC-DMIS metrology software,

Hexagon Metrology daily supports its customers to

fully control their processes and ensure that what has

been designed is in fact manufactured. The company

offer of machines, systems and software is completed

by a wide range of product support and aftermarket

services.

www.hexagonmetrology.com

© 2009 Hexagon Metrolgoy

Technical changes are reserved.

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