German manufacturers talk sense
A
Sensor Technology product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
May 21, 2004
British innovation looks set to storm through German industry, following the interest generated by the launch of Sensor Technology's new noncontact torque sensor at the Hanover Fair.
British innovation looks set to storm through German industry, following the interest generated by the launch of Sensor Technology's new noncontact torque sensor at the Hanover Fair.
To date, measuring torque in a rotating shaft has involved complicated engineering to set up a system of slip rings or other expensive measurement techniques.
Because of this, torque measurement has been confined to only specialist areas of control engineering, such as research and development.
Close monitoring of drive shafts would provide accurate real time information on the performance of production machines in every sector, but to date has not been practical in the vast majority of situations.
Senor Technology, based in Banbury, has been working on noncontact shaft monitoring for some years and used the Hanover Fair for the European launch of its new RWT310/320 series of Torqsense rotary torque sensors.
This encapsulates the techniques they have perfected and is designed for serial production so that it can be introduced to mainstream engineering.
"We expected plenty of interest from show visitors representing the academic and R and D end of engineering", says Tony Ingham of Sensor Technology, "but thought we might have to fight a bit to whip up enthusiasm among plant and control engineers from manufacturing and process environments".
"How wrong we were".
He thinks that the interest in Torqsense illustrates one of the fundamental strengths of Germany's engineering and manufacturing sectors.
Many of their engineers, even those in quite junior positions, hold doctorates, so are highly conversant with the concept of developing and applying innovative ideas.
They also tend to serve their time on the shop floor where they learn not only the practicalities of engineering but also how and why to push through new working methods.
"German factory engineers spend their days at the leading edge of technology and have budgets for developing new ideas", observes Ingham.
"When they see something new they run down their own mental check list of places where they could apply it".
"If they get more than a couple of ticks their antennae go up." "Because most machines include at least one important rotating shaft, they saw Torqsense and wondered if it was Christmas." Torqsense does not need physical contact with the shaft it is monitoring; instead it uses a radio frequency (RF) coupling to both power and read the output of a tiny piezoelectric comb mounted on the shafts surface and acting as a hypersensitive strain gauge.
During rotation all shafts twist at a microscopic level and this deforms the comb so that its fundamental frequency changes.
The twist and therefore the frequency change are directly related to the torque in the shaft, so monitoring the comb gives a direct measure of torque.
The RWT310/320 Torqsense is designed for plug and play fitting.
It comes with integral electronics, outputs for torque, speed, power and angle, analogue and/or and digital outputs, and is directly compatible with most popular PC interfaces.
It is user programmable, a feature Sensor Technology worked hard to perfect fearing that if it were difficult to use it would remain a tool for development "boffins" rather than being attractive to the full range of engineers.
Other innovative features include built-in peak torque sampling, storage and torque averaging, and a self-diagnostics test package.
Both the RWT 310 and RWT 320 can operate from a wide range of supply voltages.
"Hanover is of course an international event and we saw engineers from many, many countries, but it was the Germans' enthusiasm that we were most pleased with".
"Germany is still the powerhouse of European manufacturing, it is well positioned to influence the newest EU members and other countries to the east and its technology is transferring to the new manufacturing economies in Asia", concludes Ingham.
Not what you're looking for? Search the site.
Contact Sensor Technology
Tel +44 1869 238400
Other Sensor Technology stories
-
ST offers RWT310/320 and RWT330/340 torque sensors
Sensor Technology's digital RWT310/320 torque sensors with integrated electronics and RWT330/340 torque sensors with separate electronics include the latest Torqsense (SAW) technology. -
Powertrain selects Torqsense transducer
A Torqsense transducer from Sensor Technology is a key part of a test rig designed by Powertrain Technologies to accurately measure small changes in drive torque. -
Torqsense RWT330/340 to be unveiled at M-Tec
Sensor Technology is to unveil the Torqsense RWT330/340 series of non-contact measurement sensors for space-critical applications at M-Tec 2009. -
Sensor offers Torqsense to monitor torque
Torqsense provides a non-contact method of taking torque readings. -
Torqsense helps development of dry bulk handling
Dry bulk handling is on its way to becoming a precision science with a high level of control due to 20 years of research and development into digital non-contact torque monitoring.
Browse by category
-
Capital Equipment (3,423)
- Capital Equipment (1)
- Compressors and Air Treatment (519)
- Electrical hardware (131)
- Electronics Manufacturing, Tools, Instruments (192)
- Machinery and Production Equipment (1,106)
- Manufacturing Machinery and Plant Equipment (468)
- Production line blowers and fans (65)
- Robotics, Handling and Storage (941)
- Consultancy and Services (909)
-
Control and Instrumentation (5,068)
- Cabling, Conduit, Signal Conditioning (807)
- CNC and Motion Controllers (187)
- Control and Instrumentation (2)
- HMIs/Operator Interfaces (295)
- Logic Controllers, Timers and Relays (96)
- Mid-range and Large PLCs (202)
- Plant- and Machine-Wide Communications (1,185)
- Plantwide control (1,337)
- Power Supplies, Uninterruptible Power (569)
- Smaller-Sized PLCs (388)
-
Drives, Motors and Controls (3,398)
- Drives, Motors and Controls (1)
- Industrial Drives/Controls (1,285)
- Industrial Motors (500)
- Linear Drives and Motors (115)
- Precision Motors and Gears (420)
- Stepper and Servo Drives, Motors, Controls (1,075)
-
Electrical and Electronic Equipment Design (4,212)
- Batteries, chargers and circuit protection (558)
- Connectors, Terminals, Busbars, Slip Rings (695)
- Electrical and Electronic Components (636)
- Electrical and Electronic Equipment Design (1)
- Electrical and Electronic Subassemblies (371)
- Enclosures and Equipment Cooling Fans (713)
- Knobs, Handles and Enclosure Hardware (426)
- PCs and Embedded Systems (812)
-
Engineering Design Software (6,236)
- 2D CAD software (201)
- 3D CAD software (1,162)
- CAM, CNC, production management software (572)
- Data, document management software (313)
- Electrical design software (165)
- Engineering Design Software (15)
- FEA and structural analysis software (374)
- File conversion software, data capture (355)
- Fluid, thermal, noise, vibration software (334)
- Materials design and moulding design software (152)
- Maths, charting, statistics, QA software (319)
- PLM and collaboration software (652)
- Process, instrumentation, automation software (261)
- Publishing and documentation software (232)
- Rendering, visualisation, styling software (201)
- Simulation, modelling, validation software (928)
-
Engineering Industry News, Resources (6,145)
- Electronic Resources for Engineers (278)
- Engineering Business News, Views (388)
- Engineering Conferences (433)
- Engineering Education, Resources, Standards (845)
- Engineering Exhibitions, Events (568)
- Engineering Guides, Newsletters (357)
- Engineering Industry Developments, Awards (636)
- Engineering Industry News, Resources (4)
- Engineering Industry Reports, Surveys (597)
- Engineering Recruitment, Employment (219)
- Engineering Seminars (405)
- Engineering Training Courses (443)
- Health and Safety Consultancy, Software (176)
- Health and Safety Events, Training, News (280)
- Health and Safety Legislation (402)
- Health and Safety Strategy, Risk Assessment (114)
- Machine Building (4,568)
-
Materials and Processing (2,994)
- Materials and components (2,237)
- Materials and Processing (5)
- Materials processing and testing (288)
- Rapid Prototyping (464)
-
Monitoring, Measurement and Quality (5,543)
- Data Acquisition Hardware and PC I/O Boards (479)
- Data acquisition Software and Communications (498)
- Data loggers (423)
- Electrical and Electronic Testing, PAT Equipment (636)
- Form/co-ordinate, optical, vision instruments (736)
- Gauges, Indicators and Instruments (445)
- Materials testing equipment (420)
- Monitoring, Measurement and Quality (1)
- Telecomms/network test equipment, software etc (156)
- Testing and Calibration Services and Information (510)
- Testing, analysing and monitoring equipment (1,239)
-
Powertrain Design (3,652)
- Bearings (960)
- Chains and belts (329)
- Gears, brakes, couplings and engines (1,456)
- Hydraulic Components (473)
- Lubricants (431)
- Powertrain Design (2)
-
Sensors (7,150)
- Accelerometers and Vibration Sensors (434)
- Barcode Sensors (103)
- Flowmeters and Flow Sensors (622)
- Gas, Chemical, Radiation, Magnetic Sensors (286)
- Humidity and Environmental Sensors (155)
- Level Sensors and Leak Detectors (529)
- Linear Position Sensors (408)
- Loadcells, Force Sensors, Torque Sensors (712)
- Pressure sensors (625)
- Proximity Sensors (708)
- Rotary Position, Tilt and Angular Sensors (551)
- Sensors (8)
- Temperature sensors (613)
- Vision and Colour Sensors (1,396)
- Small Mechanical Components, Joining, Tools (1,989)
- Valves, Pumps, Process Hardware (3,661)
