SKF has added new technologies through two new key collaborations with LumenRadio and SMT, that will greatly enhance the ability of mine and mineral process plant operators to monitor the condition of their rotating equipment, and equipment OEMs in the design of gearboxes and transmissions. These transmissions of course often includes SKF’s bearings, seals and lubrication systems. Rotating equpiment includes everything from grinding mill and conveyor drives to mine hoists, longwall shearers and a host of other applications.
First off, by collaborating with wireless specialist LumenRadio, SKF has developed a new wireless sensor as part of a condition monitoring system for improving rotating equipment performance programs on a scale previously considered uneconomic. LumenRadio began in areas such as professional lighting, its products are used to monitor, and control sophisticated light shows remotely. The company has since expanded into IoT applications in heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) and heavy industrial applications.
SKF has teamed up with connectivity experts LumenRadio to create a new wireless monitoring system, measuring vibration and temperature. The “SKF Enlight Collect IMx-1 System” combines SKF’s knowledge in machine health monitoring with LumenRadio’s patented network technology.
When fitted to rotating equipment, the SKF Enlight Collect IMx-1 system can economically automate vibration data collection. Predictive maintenance programs can be expanded with data captured more often, which increases defect detection rates and leads to avoidance of costly unplanned machine shutdowns.
With LumenRadio, SKF can employ their MiraOS operating system, which provides several benefits with wireless communication. A “mesh network” protocol enables sensors to exchange data, navigating around obstacles, such as pipework and liquid storage tanks, instead of trying to punch through them. LumenRadio’s patented cognitive co-existence technique scans the radio spectrum and switches frequencies to avoid ‘busy’ channels and overcome interference. All this means increased radio reliability and less retransmissions – significantly reducing the power consumption of the battery in a small device.
Chris G. James, Product Manager at SKF says: “Low power consumption was one of the main reasons SKF chose to work with LumenRadio. The technology not only provides high precision time stamping of data, it also minimises energy usage by knowing exactly when to switch the radio on and off. This means the sensor can work on a single battery for many years, in tough wireless environments.”
Christian Sahlin, Business Area Manager Industry at LumenRadio says: “It is a privilege to be a part of the SKF journey – shaping the future of automated machine monitoring and rotating equipment performance. Bringing the wireless expertise from LumenRadio together with the hundreds of years of experience within rotating equipment from SKF creates a strong foundation for the next industrial phase.”
The self-forming sensor network requires no existing infrastructure like Wi-Fi and can be deployed on a scale enough to cover the monitoring points of today’s “walk-arounds”. Precise timestamping of vibration data enables wider analysis capabilities in SKF’s strategy of reliable rotation as a service.
With this system, plus cloud-based support, SKF can help customers improve rotating equipment performance through faster, effective reporting on the state of components and assets.
SKF also says engineers now have access to the ultimate design tool capability, through the integrations of SKF’s Bearing Module calculation service into the analysis software of SMT, a leader in mechanical and electromechanical transmission engineering services. By combining SKF and SMT’s technical analysis and optimisation capabilities, engineers can now have a seamless experience when designing transmission systems. The SMT MASTA software helps engineers to accurately and rapidly design and predict performance characteristics. It also helps them to identify potential failure modes and undertake full-system (including time-domain MBD) simulations for any gearbox layout.
The combined software allows bearings to be assessed within the context of full system level models. It also includes SKF bearing data for thousands of the company’s bearings, alongside ISO 281 and ISO 16281 results. SKF rating life safety factors and reliability are displayed for individual load cases as well as combined for duty cycles and design states. These results are fully integrated into SMT’s MASTA software. They are also available in RUNNA, MASTA’s batch running capabilities, SMT’s innovative Custom Reporting Framework, MASTA’s Parametric Study Tool and MASTA’s extensive scripting functionality. The combination of SKF and SMT in this way means that engineers now have, at their fingertips, everything needed to design highly reliable rotating equipment.
Paul Langlois, Software Engineering Director, at SMT, says: “This latest addition to our ongoing collaboration with SKF adds great value for our mutual customers. This will allow them to assess their bearings within the context of full system level models in MASTA, while benefiting from the proprietary life calculations of SKF.”
Hedzer Tillema, Product Line Manager Engineering Tools, at SKF, says: “This joint development is of high importance for SKF. It helps our customers to design reliable rotating equipment through key bearing knowledge and shows that ‘seamless engineering’ is becoming a reality for more and more machine design engineers.”