ISO 16232 / VDA: What Are They and Why Do I Need to Know about Them?
In terms of engineering component quality, one of the areas that affect both the finished part and the interaction of that part with other components is cleanliness. The ISO 16232
and VDA19 standards aim to set a level for people to work to that helps to achieve a level playing field in terms of cleanliness.
VDA is a German safety system standard (Verband der Automobilindustrie). It is specific to the automobile industry and was created to increase workplace safety. As the organisation
has grown, since its inception in 1970, the remit has changed considerably and now includes quality management in its portfolio.
Their standards have become recognised across the world and their influence helps to shape the direction of the motor industry. ISO 16232 was originally released in 2007 and was specific to road-going vehicle manufacturing.
It has undergone a number of changes since its first draft, but in essence, it describes the principles of extracting contaminants and particles from a component by some form of pressure rinsing. The aims of ISO 16232 are to;
• Further improve the comparability of cleanliness inspection results,
• Include new (extraction and analysis) techniques, and
• Provide information on how to define cleanliness specifications and explain how to react when cleanliness limit values are exceeded.
To achieve an effective measurement of cleanliness, several factors need to be taken into account. Materials are the obvious start, then identifying contaminant sources, such as
cutting methods, lubricating oils, cooling materials, washing materials, outside contaminants etc.
Alongside the above, staff create their own effects. Trained staff can be more cautious in the machined product handling, thus reducing possible contaminations sources. The final parts of the process are filtration methods, cleaning methods and finally cleanliness
measurement processes.
All of these phases and processes leave a trace of the finished product. That trace is what ISO 16232 is concerned with and the whole framework provides a methodology to both identify and remove contaminants and increase quality across the whole manufacturing process.
VDA 19 was originally released in 2004. Since then, it has had numerous updates in line with changing policy and increased scientific understanding of the processes involved. The standard shares a lot of similarities with ISO 16232 and is broken into the following areas:
• Initial inspection and evaluation,
• Inspection of incoming and outgoing components, and
• Quality control or monitoring of manufacturing processes relevant to cleanliness (e.g. cleaning, surface treatment and assembly processes).
VDA 19 & ISO 16232 work hand in hand together to cover the whole spectrum of standardization of the processes involved in manufacturing and cleanliness of componentry for motor vehicles.
Any business that sets out to adhere to these two levels of standards can set its stall out into the world marketplace as opposed to a local or country-specific marketplace. Of course, as with all things, achieving these standards is only part of the story.
Once at that operating level, the standards have to be maintained and any staff and processes kept at least up to those levels. The standing of any business is only as good as the last works completed.
Extraction
To analyse particles on component surfaces, we must first detach them from the surface. This process is called extraction. We have various methods with which we can extract
the residual dirt and transfer it to a liquid medium: We spray, flood or rinse the component, or we use ultrasound.
We collect the particles removed on a filter membrane and prepare them for further analysis.
Particle Analysis
With technical cleanliness verification we acquire and analyse contamination on the relevant surfaces of an inspection object as completely as possible.
In this way, you safeguard your product quality and prevent any contamination from the manufacturing process or environment causing damage such as jamming bearings or sliding surfaces, blocked valves or clogged filters and nozzles. Depending on the depth of
analysis you require, we have various analysis methods:
1. Particle analysis with polarised light.
2. Fully automated particle analysis with SEM-EDX.
3. Fully automatic analysis of the particles via spectral comparison (RAMAN, FTIR).
4. Optical particle counting for liquids.
References
• https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso:16232:ed-1:v1:en
• https://www.en-standard.eu/vda-19.1-inspection-of-technical-cleanliness-particulate-contamination-offunctionally-relevant-automotive-components-/-2nd-revised-edition-march-2015-former-title-vda-volume-19/
• https://kumi-solutions.com/iso-16232-vda-19-what-are-they-and-why-do-i-need-to-know-about-them/
• https://www.bva.com.tr/glaeser/
• https://www.qa-group.com/index.php/en/services/technical-cleanliness-verification/particulate-contamination/
• https://mkf-automation.de/en/technical-cleanliness-and-cleanroom/consulting-on-vda19-and-iso-14644-1
• https://www.cleancontrolling.com/en/technical/products-services/analytics/a-focus-on-particles-technicalcleanliness/standard-cleanliness-inspection-/-residual-particle-contamination-analysis
https://www.pressebox.com/pressrelease/duerr-ecoclean-gmbh/EcoCLab-fully-automatic-VD
Doç. Dr. Ekrem Altuncu
TÜYİDER (Surface Treatments Association of Turkey) Scientific and Advisory Board Member
Sakarya University of Applied Sciences
Material and Production Technologies Application and Research Center- SUMAR Manager
