Linear actuator adopted into lab mixers
A
Parker-Origa product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Sep 22, 2008
Silverson has adopted a Hoerbiger-Origa linear actuator as the lift mechanism on its laboratory scale high shear mixer, replacing a chain drive built in house with an out-of-the-box mechatronic unit.
It also acts as a structural member, the 'column' to support the shear drive head above its base.
For over 60 years Silverson has specialised in the manufacture of high shear mixers for the worldwide processing and manufacturing industries.
Many of these are enormous and bespoke to particular requirements, but they are built to the same principles as the smaller laboratory and pilot scale units.
A couple of years ago Silverson began to worry about the continued supply of the square section tube they use for the main column of the stand, or upright.
Coupled with this was the realisation that getting them chromed, a necessity for clean room environments, would also become harder as specialist chroming seemed to be a dying art.
Alan Pepper, chief engineer for Silverson said: 'We could have gone for a like-for-like replacement, probably sourcing from India or China, and of course we explored these avenues.
'The logistics would have been difficult, so we'd have had to hold larger stocks.
'We decided to turn a negative into a positive and look at innovative design solutions.' The upright acts as a housing for the lift mechanism, which raises and lowers the shear head into the mixing vessel.
Traditionally, Silverson has used a chain drive to do this, which they built in house.
This arrangement had a few issues that could be addressed to improve the overall design of the mixer.
The component count was high and the build time significant.
No matter what, the chain drive always gave an overrun of 20-30mm, making fast accurate lowering of the shear head very difficult.
Plus, the chain was subject to wear so had to be re-tensioned or replaced under a regular service pattern.
Pepper and his technical team began to review options for buying in a linear actuator to both support the mixing head and provide vertical drive.
Silverson wanted a fully-enclosed unit with smooth lines for hygiene purposes.
It had to be capable of driving the load at 100mm/s, yet resolve the overrun issue of the chain drive.
The design life of the actuator had to match or better the 10 years of the Silverson mixer.
There were several products that fitted the bill, so a stricter criteria was introduced in order to derive a shortlist.
It was decided the unit should have integral limit switches so that there were no trailing leads or cable management requirements.
This highlighted Hoerbiger-Origa's OSP-E range as the primary candidate and the company was called in to make a presentation.
The OSP-E is available in a range of sizes and with a choice of various screw and toothed belt drive options.
A trapezoidal screw drive was identified as best suited to the Silverson application, a size 32 unit could satisfy all of Silverson's technical requirements, including that the drive was not back-drivable.
It is designed to be an out-of-the-box solution that incorporates all necessary parts, and to have considerable static and dynamic load bearing capabilities.
'There was a slight issue on the overall shape of the actuator, a minor detail that I was quite prepared to design around,' said Pepper.
'But Hoerbiger-Origa instantly said that they would design a bespoke extrusion profile for us and have samples ready within a couple of weeks.' Silverson put several units through extensive test programmes, carrying 20kg loads at 200mm/sec (double the specification) for 24 hours a day.
The laboratory mixer requires capability for 4km of linear motion if it is to reach its 10 year design life.
The Hoerbiger-Origa actuators reached 18km with no sign of wear, at which point the test was discontinued.
For Silverson, the OSPE is coupled with a reversing motor from Oriental, with the limit switches flicking it into reverse at the end of stroke to act as a brake and minimise overrun.
'Hoerbiger-Origa could have reduced the overrun to a fraction of a millimetre, but we settled on 2-5mm for our standard units.
'Similarly, we've standardised on units 1000mm long, but know that Hoerbiger-Origa will supply bespoke lengths without any fuss,' added Pepper.
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Contact Parker-Origa
Tel (UK) 08700 600 655
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