Preventing Breakdowns By Using A Torque Measurement Solution

Bespoke Torque Sensor To Into Limited Space on a shaft

In order to prevent unscheduled breakdowns and maintenance, Stork Food and Dairy Systems needed to develop a condition monitoring system for one of their critical production lines, namely bottle filling machines, that could accurately detect faults in real-time and suggest the best course of action for engineers on site.

Datum Electronics Ltd was contracted to design a bespoke torque sensor able to feed data into the system in a simple format. Given that a production line cannot be stopped for a long time due to deadlines and existing orders, the installation process had to be very quick and with minimal intrusion to the working driveline. Also, the existing limited space was too small to fit a conventional shaft power measurement system and the torque transducer had to be a custom-designed. After a thorough site inspection and expert consultation with the Datum team, the partners decided on customisation features the torque transducer required.

Given demanding time constraints, it was agreed on Datum designing a tailored-made torque sensor that could be installed on site on the existing shaft in less than two hours. Secondly, due to the nature of Stork’s business, the sensor also had to be environmentally protected from caustic soda and other cleaning agents. The one more thing that is definitely worth mentioning is that the stata of the Datum torque transducer was specifically manufactured so it could be removed without removing the shaft.