SATRA invests in footwear X-ray system

Introducing a new SATRA service for member companies.

SATRA has invested in an advanced X-ray system for examining footwear, which will also have application for assessing many other types of products.

Replacing our previous X-ray machine, the Ishida IX-GA-4075-S is a large belt-fed system that can be used for non-destructive testing of a whole range of products. Products as wide as 400mm can be assessed, giving the capability to scan boxed or unboxed products as large as boxed men's safety footwear.

An X-ray system has many advantages over a conventional metal detector. Foremost of these is that the machine's ability to detect foreign bodies is not compromised by the presence of metal components – such as steel shanks or metallic toe caps – that are expected to be present within the footwear.

The IX-GA system can 'see' through most types of packaging, even aluminium foil, enabling an operator to check that product boxes contain a matched pair, with all the appropriate components. With its advanced software for automatic detection, the system can be programmed to ignore high-density items that form part of the product, including metal shanks, ceramic toecaps, zips and other closures, while quickly identifying erroneous objects such as broken sewing needles.

A valuable tool

With this equipment, SATRA can now offer an enhanced range of assessment services to our members, such as:

• locating and identifying foreign objects within samples – both metallic and non-metallic – such as broken sewing needles, footwear tacks, broken eyelets and other potential contaminants
• identifying defects in moulded materials, including voids and excess porosity
• confirming the presence and correct position of items within the footwear, such as toe caps, shanks and perforation-resistant inserts, as well as toe and heel reinforcements
• checking for defects within embedded items – for example, shanks and toecaps
• bulk checking of a large quantity of goods, using the machine’s automatic detection software
• individual assessment and analysis of a single piece of footwear to identify faults or potential problems
• providing detailed images for inclusion in test reports.

Publishing Data

This article was originally published on page 6 of the October 2016 issue of SATRA Bulletin.

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