In many industries, products must be leak-proof, whether in the automotive industry, medical technology, the fittings industry, household appliances, foundries or apparatus engineering. If the leak is only detected during operation, it can be expensive. Defective, leaking test specimens must be detected and sorted out as early as possible in the value chain.

E-mobility in particular poses new challenges in the leak testing of batteries or battery packs. In addition, numerous other future-oriented products such as fuel cells (stacks) with increased requirements must be tested. The tightness of these products is a decisive factor for their longevity and therefore has a significant influence on the range of the vehicles, for example.

Zeltwanger has extensive experience in the field of leak testing, both with air and with detection gases. The company has further developed its portfolio with regard to I4.0 and flexibility and rounded it off with new products. Zeltwanger is a supplier and system partner for individual devices, individually configurable systems or complete automation.

Leak test with air

The integration of the various leak testing methods into the production process is a key aspect. The standardized modules for relative pressure, absolute pressure (vacuum), differential pressure, mass flow, dynamic pressure and bell testing are available for air as a medium. Zeltwanger also offers the individually configurable ZEDsystem sliding carriage system for semi-automated leak testing. The advantage of these overall solutions is that customers receive a complete system (plug and play) including adaptation and sealing. The flexible system can also be fully automated at a later date if required by the quantities involved. In addition to the ZEDsystem, which is available in various sizes and can be expanded for numerous processes such as joining, embossing or lasering, other concepts are also available as turnkey solutions.

Leak test with detection gases

Non-toxic, odorless and easily detectable - the noble gas helium offers numerous advantages. It only occurs in low concentrations in the ambient air and does not react with other materials. This enables rapid testing and the detection of even the smallest leaks.

Zeltwanger integrates the common test methods of integral vacuum testing, sniffer testing and accumulation testing into standardized and sophisticated platforms such as the X-Cell, for example, a robot-guided sniffer test can be carried out on a battery housing. For this, the test object is pressurized with helium. The sniffer probe is moved to defined points by a robot in order to localize a possible leak. The advantage over a manual sniffer test is the reproducibility. As a robot always moves to exactly the same coordinates as a human, the helium atoms that are counted are always a measure of the size of the leak.