Instrumentation and Control News

A test rig built at Centa Transmissions in Shipley is allowing the company to guarantee that the precision gearboxes it supplies to nuclear industry will never fail prematurely.

 

Despite its critical role, the rig is essentially quite simple, in that a motor drives the test unit against a load created by one of Centa’s own industrial disc brakes. The test runs initially for three hours at the full working load, and then is increased to 300 percent load for another hour. At the heart of the rig is a non-contact sensor that constantly monitors the torque in the gearbox, generating a performance profile that can be compared with the ideal performance standard.

Cold extrusion is playing an ever greater part in recycling of waste plastic, and the Department for Business and Enterprise is sponsoring research into development of the machinery necessary for such work.

Engineers at Bradford University have built a pilot plant and are running a series of trials with different processes, feed plastics, additives, and final products. Leader of the project, Dr Raj Patel explains:

"We started out comparing cold extrusion and warm extrusion, in which the material is heated prior to processing, and quickly realised that cold extrusion was more suited to recycled plastic. Our process now is to granulate the recycled materials to a consistent size, mix in binders as appropriate to basically, glue the particulates back together, and cold extrude it into sheets or blocks.

Camarillo, CA - Binder-USA is proud to announce the addition of M8 protective caps to their 718 and 768 series M8 connector product line.  The protective caps, when applied to unmated connectors, ensure a protection rating of IP67.  These caps are ideal for use in factory automation and process control applications.

Camarillo, CA – Binder-USA is pleased to announce the development of stainless steel M12 threaded sockets.  The addition of these parts to Binder’s 763 series provides customers with a complete range of stainless steel connectors, ideal for use in food processing, pharmaceutical manufacturing and other applications requiring a robust sealed & EMI protected connection.

The DS30 available from Sick is more than just an expansion of one of the wide portfolios of industrial distance sensors on the market with its hitherto unique combination of small housing size and precision the DS30 represents a new era of time-of-flight of light measurement.

The sensor features a vibrating cantilever, supported at one end and coated with antibodies. The antibodies are specific to the desired target such as E. coli, anthrax or proteins that are biomarkers for diseases such as prostate cancer. When the target is present in a sample flowing past the sensor, it binds to the cantilever and changes the frequency of vibration so it can be read electronically.

Transense and TMS320F28x Device Brings Complete Control System Capabilities For Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems and Torque Sensing

This simplification facilitates the preparation of indicator measurements, reduces the need to keep stocks of sensors in various lengths and shortens delivery times.
The use of glow plug adapters permits cylinder pressure measurements to be taken without need for a separate measuring bore. The adapter is screwed into the existing bore of the original glow plug.

Fast`s technique - on which there are 20 patents pending - is to magnetise the shaft and to sense the changes in the magnetic field that occur when torque is applied. These changes are detected by a sensing head typically placed about 1mm from the shaft, and are then converted into an electrical signal by conditioning electronics

The TMF transducer, developed jointly by Magtrol (formerly Vibro-meter`s instrumentation division) in Switzerland, and GIF in Germany, uses strain-gauge measurement. The sensor is available in rated torques of 450, 1,100 or 2,800Nm, with the optional second measuring range typically being rated at 1/10 of the nominal torque.