Hi-tech partners trial new monitoring system

DYNAMIC high-tech players at the Advanced Manufacturing Park (AMP) in Rotherham are working together to provide industry with an innovative system designed to cut costs and make lower carbon manufacturing processes a commercial reality.

AMP Technology Centre tenants Sensdata and Drive Management Services (DMS), an engineering consultancy firm, are working together to deliver a cost-effective monitoring system, developed by Sensdata, that enables the reduction of plant downtime, energy wastage and CO2 emissions. The SensSlip System automatically monitors slippage in drive belts, which are widely used in manufacturing equipment.

DMS Managing Director, Allan Findlow, believes the SensSlip system has a major part to play in enabling modern day engineers analyse critical plant driven by vee-belts, potentially saving thousands of pounds spent on lost electrical energy due to the inefficiency and low maintenance of the power transmission system.

Sensdata Technical Director, Bob Brown believes that working closely with DMS can only help penetrate traditional industrial markets currently operating thousands of vee-belt drives. He said: "DMS's expertise in assisting us with client references is invaluable, and their ability to install and service these systems professionally is paramount."

In a trial at Corus' Stocksbridge site, the system revealed that thousands of pounds in energy costs could be saved.

An energy services engineer at Corus, Chris Spenceley said: "We have a number of heat treatment furnaces at the Stocksbridge site equipped with combustion air and fume extraction fans, which are powered by large motors. They are fuelled either by natural gas or heavy fuel oil. We therefore also have lots of vee-belts. While most obvious safety systems are closely monitored, the vee-belt is often given low - if any - priority, and you tend to forget about them."

Corus did not have a structured vee-belt slip monitoring system in place, despite the fact that a failed vee-belt meant the furnace could be shut down for three to four hours, and steel in the process could be scrapped or in need of additional treatment.

Chris Spenceley added: "In critical areas we can't afford them to fail, and therefore we change the belts twice a year during planned shut downs, to ensure they are replaced before their expected failure time - whether it is needed or not. Failure incurs additional costs."

After agreeing to a trial, Corus was impressed by the Sensdata system.

In just one sample period of monitoring a belt, over 4.3 days of continuous running,

Sensdata confirmed the transmission drive was, at times, only running at 82 per cent efficiency. Accepted industry parameters are that vee-belts should provide peak efficiency of between 95-98 per cent when first installed.

This could equate to over £9,290 of energy wasted from just one vee-belt drive system.

Spenceley said: "The staff at Sensdata have been great to work with. They came up with a great idea for a solution to an industry-wide problem. We found them to be flexible and responsive. They listened to our needs and adapted the monitoring system to meet them."

The SensSlip system is a complementary system to the state-of-art condition monitoring systems developed and provided by DMS.

The engineering consultancy works with blue chip and SME organisations across a broad range of sectors from manufacturing to water treatment, from building supplies to food production. It offers a range of condition monitoring products and services designed to eliminate downtime and lost production as a result of machine failure.

DMS hopes to integrate the Sensdata system into its newly developed web-based condition monitoring system, thereby opening new markets to both companies and giving UK manufacturers a real competitive advantage while at the same time implementing low carbon processes.