Retrofit of intelligent sensor system in outdoor crane to increase the service life of the energy chain
This rail-mounted gantry (RMG) uses two reverse assembled energy chains over a 113m travel due to the large number of cables. To increase the service life of both energy chain and crane, a safety system for switching off the cable guide in the event of damage and a preventive-maintenance system were retrofitted.
Profile
- What was needed:
Energy chains with condition monitoring systems for push/pull force detection (iSense EC.P), cable tensile strength monitoring (iSense CF.P) and for breakage detection (iSense EC.B) as well as a predictive maintenance system - Requirements: Safe and failure-free movement of a large number of heavy cables in adverse environmental conditions
- Industry: Cranes
- Success for the customer: With the installation of smart plastics, the customer now has full control, overview and safety for the energy supply on his RMG crane.
Challenge
As with most machines, this crane is also designed for long and constant operating times. Even short and, above all, unplanned stops are undesirable and must be avoided.
However, the high number of cables in the two e-chains is a high load.
In addition to the desired long service life in conjunction with the high loads, a wide variety of weather conditions also come into play. Wind and weather put a strain on the material, but the function has to be 100% guaranteed at all times of the year. The cranes in port facilities have to deliver top performance.
The customer therefore wanted to install both a safety system that switches off in the event of damage (condition monitoring) and a preventive system (predictive maintenance) that, in addition to a signal, also issues a maintenance and replacement recommendation for the product.
Solution
After detailed consultation, the customer decided in favour of the complete smart plastics crane package and now has full control, overview and safety for the energy supply on his RMG.
Specifically, three condition-monitoring systems are now installed in the crane:
i.Sense EC.P (push/pull force monitoring on e-chains®), i.Sense CF.P (tensile strength monitoring of the cables) and i.Sense EC.B (breakage detection on e-chains).
A predictive-maintenance system was also installed.
All systems are perfectly matched and supplied and installed as a package.
In the event of an incident with one of the energy chains (be it a bent guide trough, foreign objects in the guide trough, a blockage or the breakage of a chain link), condition monitoring notifies the crane operator. If desired, the system can be stopped immediately.
Predictive maintenance prevents all further incidents before they can occur. If maintenance is required, a signal is sent with the relevant information. All sensor data such as temperature, acceleration or speed are available online in real time or can be viewed in the company network via a dashboard.
Text taken over from original – igus