Intelligent smart plastics as active shapers of smart factories
06 June 2019
As a manufacturer at the forefront of engineering plastic technology, igus is going through a digital development process and is increasingly orienting its products towards use in smart factories. The aim is to make the maintenance and repair of its plastics more efficient and cost-effective.
Thanks to the newly developed isense products, which monitor the health of our products and systems, timely warnings ensure unscheduled and costly shutdowns are eliminated. This added intelligence also brings new possibilities for system integrators by extending product service life beyond the warranty period.
So, what is isense? How does it work and when should it be used? Well take a step back. First, we need to understand the failure/wear modes and detect changes. For energy chains, this could detecting the wear of the e-chain itself (EC.W) or certain parts of the chain, such as the pin and bore connection (EC.I). There is also a sensor that detects whether there is a breakage or obstacle in the system (EC.B). For monitoring energy chains over long travel distances, the EC.P measures the push/pull forces, which could indicated a problem somewhere along the run. Similarly, for chainflex cables the CF.Q measures the quality degradation and the CF.D measures packet loss over time for bus cables
These isense units monitor the sensor output, making sense out of the output data. They can integrate seamlessly with your IT infrastructure via icom, the igus communication module. This makes true automated continuous condition monitoring and predictive maintenance possible.
The output could be an amber warning that brings attention to an action during the next planned maintenance period. A red alert, on the other hand, would indicate that maintenance is needed imminently. If it is a breakage, the system can shut down automatically. An optional connection with the igus data centre opens the option of automatic allocation of external maintenance crews or ordering of replacement parts.
But how does isense know the long-term product behaviour? We test our products intensively in-house and have done for more than 60 years. We know and understand thresholds with years of experience in determining the behaviour of our products over millions of cycles of use under lots of different conditions.
igus smart plastics are predicting service life in a whole host of applications, from machines and equipment used in the automotive industry to stacking cranes used in container ports. The next development step for smart plastics is the increasing integration of electronic components for adding more intelligence – watch this space.
www.igus.co.uk/smartplastics
Contact Details and Archive...