CRI-MAN was foun­ded in 2000 and is loc­ated in Cor­reg­gio, Italy. As part of the ac­quis­i­tion 85 em­ploy­ees will join At­las Copco Group. The com­pany man­u­fac­tures and sells chop­per pumps, sep­ar­at­ors, and mix­ers for an­aer­obic flow, pro­cessing slurry in bio­gas and do­mest­ic and in­dus­tri­al wastewa­ter treat­ment plants. Main cus­tom­ers can be found with­in the bio­gas and wastewa­ter in­dus­tries.

“We are very pleased to wel­come CRI-MAN to At­las Copco Group. With this ac­quis­i­tion we are fur­ther adding com­ple­ment­ary tech­no­logy to our ex­ist­ing in­dus­tri­al pump port­fo­lio which will be­ne­fit our cur­rent cus­tom­ers and provide ad­di­tion­al op­por­tun­it­ies for growth”, said An­drew Walk­er, Busi­ness Area Pres­id­ent Power Tech­nique.

The pur­chase price is not dis­closed. In 2024 the com­pany had rev­en­ues of ap­prox­im­ately 30 mil­lion Euro (342 MSEK in av. ex­change rate 2024). The ac­quis­i­tion is sub­ject to reg­u­lat­ory ap­prov­al and is ex­pec­ted to close dur­ing the fourth quarter 2025. The com­pany will be­come part of the In­dus­tri­al Flow di­vi­sion with­in the Power Tech­nique Busi­ness Area.
 

CodeWrights was founded in 2002 as a joint venture between Endress+Hauser and Pepperl+Fuchs and employs nearly 50 people. As a service provider, the company develops customized software solutions for providers of measurement and automation technology, for example apps and cloud applications, software for industrial automation and embedded software for devices. This has contributed to CodeWrights’ profitable growth and its reputation as a trusted software partner.

Professional team and strong business model

“We are excited to assume full ownership of CodeWrights. At the same time, we would like to thank Pepperl+Fuchs for more than 20 years of constructive partnership,” says Dr Rolf Birkhofer, managing director of Endress+Hauser Digital Solutions, the Group’s product center for the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). “We believe strongly in the expertise of the team and the strength of the business model. Together, we look forward to driving further growth and success.”

“We look back on decades of successful collaboration built on mutual trust and respect, for which we would like to express our genuine appreciation. We are confident that, with Endress+Hauser as the sole owner, CodeWrights is ideally positioned to drive its strategic development and realize its full potential,” says Lutz Liebers, COO for Process Automation at Pepperl+Fuchs.

No changes for customers

“By transferring the shares, we are creating a clearer ownership structure and strengthening our company’s strategic ability to act. This decision enables faster coordination and provides new impetus for our shared growth,” adds Thomas Debes, managing Director CodeWrights GmbH. He emphasizes that the acquisition will have no impact on the service provider’s day-to-day operations. “CodeWrights will continue to serve all customers with the same commitment and maintain its established service portfolio. Employees at both CodeWrights and Endress+Hauser can expect continuity in their work and collaboration.”

Cracks, break­age and erosion in ro­tor blades are com­mon causes of fail­ure in wind tur­bines. Off­shore wind farms are at spe­cial risk, as they are ex­posed to ex­cep­tion­ally strong winds, rain and oth­er severe weath­er con­di­tions at sea. Be­cause these fa­cil­it­ies are hard to ac­cess, in­spec­tions are costly and time-con­sum­ing, which is why ro­tor blades are some­times simply re­placed when dam­age is merely sus­pec­ted. The costs can run to well over 200,000 euros per blade per in­cid­ent.

Struc­ture-borne sound sensors de­tect dam­age

A di­vi­sion of Fraunhofer IIS is work­ing with Fraunhofer IWES on a solu­tion: “Our goal is to use acous­tic emis­sion sensors to re­li­ably mon­it­or dam­age to ro­tor blades re­motely, thereby help­ing to en­sure that wind tur­bines are avail­able and do not fail,” says Björn Zeug­mann, group man­ager at Fraunhofer IIS in the area of ana­log in­teg­rated cir­cuit design, de­scrib­ing the project’s ob­ject­ives.

To that end, he and his col­leagues worked to­geth­er to de­vel­op a spe­cial chip used in the sensors. The sensors, which are stuck to the in­di­vidu­al ro­tor blades from in­side, ab­sorb sound waves trav­el­ing through the struc­ture of the blades. One chal­lenge is that un­like with a steel beam, for ex­ample, the ma­ter­i­al is not ho­mo­gen­eous. In­stead, ro­tor blades con­sist of dif­fer­ent lay­ers. The newly de­veloped chip cap­tures sig­nals known as sur­face waves, which are cre­ated in the event of dam­age such as a crack. It then trans­mits these sig­nals, for ex­ample via mo­bile com­mu­nic­a­tions.

What makes this tech­nique spe­cial is that un­like con­ven­tion­al meas­ure­ment sys­tems such as radar sys­tems or drones that col­lect and trans­mit all the raw data, the Dresden-based re­search­ers’ new chip trans­fers only an­om­al­ous in­form­a­tion: “We use an acous­tic sys­tem that de­tects dam­age based on the sounds it makes, so it can tell the dif­fer­ence between a crack that is form­ing in­side the ro­tor blade and a break, for ex­ample,” Zeug­mann ex­plains. Fraunhofer IWES de­veloped this acous­tic solu­tion in a pre­vi­ous project. Ex­tract­ing char­ac­ter­ist­ic fea­tures makes it pos­sible to sig­ni­fic­antly re­duce the data volume so it can be trans­mit­ted via a mo­bile net­work in the first place. “Our chip is al­ways listen­ing, which means ideally it can clas­si­fy and trans­mit in­form­a­tion on po­ten­tial dam­age from in­side the ro­tor blade it­self.”

Re­du­cing un­ne­ces­sary ser­vice mis­sions

Go­ing for­ward, this should make it pos­sible to de­term­ine, first, wheth­er dam­age has in fact oc­curred at all and the tur­bine needs to be shut down in the worst case. Second, it will also help re­duce the num­ber of un­ne­ces­sary ser­vice mis­sions to hard-to-reach off­shore wind farms and op­tim­ize ser­vice be­cause dam­age can be mon­itored over a longer peri­od. If the dam­age gets worse and emits noise, the sound is de­tec­ted, so tech­ni­cians can per­form a tar­geted in­spec­tion and re­pair the is­sue as needed.

Com­pared to ex­ist­ing meas­ure­ment meth­ods, the new solu­tion is smal­ler and more en­ergy-ef­fi­cient and uses sig­ni­fic­antly less data since it trans­mits smal­ler data pack­ages. This means there is also no need for a broad­band in­ter­net con­nec­tion to trans­mit rel­ev­ant in­form­a­tion from the wind farms to the main­land.

De­vel­op­ment of light­ning strike de­tec­tion

In two pri­or projects, Fraunhofer IIS and Fraunhofer IWES already worked to­geth­er to de­vel­op an ini­tial pro­to­type of the chip that can be used to de­tect dam­age. The suc­cessor project, now in pro­gress, was launched on June 1. In the project, the re­search­ers are plan­ning to ex­pand the over­all sys­tem so it can also de­tect light­ning strikes – and the po­ten­tial con­sequences – down the road. This has not been pos­sible thus far, but es­pe­cially for off­shore wind farms, this ad­di­tion­al in­form­a­tion is cru­cial.

Zeug­mann is de­lighted at how far the new tech­no­logy has come: “I’m fas­cin­ated by work­ing in a field of the fu­ture like the en­ergy trans­ition and cre­at­ing value for so­ci­ety that way.”

Siemens AG closed its ac­quis­i­tion of ebm-papst's in­dus­tri­al drive tech­no­logy busi­ness. In the fu­ture, it will be mar­keted us­ing the name "Mechat­ron­ic Sys­tems" at Siemens. The busi­ness has about 650 em­ploy­ees and its port­fo­lio in­cludes in­tel­li­gent, in­teg­rated mechat­ron­ic sys­tems in the ex­tra-low voltage pro­tec­tion range, in­nov­at­ive driv­ing sys­tems used in free-mov­ing, driver­less trans­port sys­tems, and oth­er ap­plic­a­tions. This ac­quis­i­tion com­ple­ments the Siemens Xcel­er­at­or port­fo­lio, strength­en­ing Siemens' po­s­i­tion as a lead­ing pro­vider of flex­ible man­u­fac­tur­ing auto­ma­tion solu­tions. In­teg­rat­ing the new port­fo­lio in­to the ex­ist­ing auto­ma­tion port­fo­lio and lever­aging Siemens' glob­al sales net­work will open up new mar­kets and sig­ni­fic­ant busi­ness po­ten­tial in the field of in­tel­li­gent, bat­tery-powered drive and ro­bot solu­tions.

“The new port­fo­lio ele­ments sig­ni­fic­antly ex­pand and en­hance our of­fer­ings to cus­tom­ers who want to auto­mate and di­git­al­ize their pro­duc­tion pro­cesses in smart factor­ies. Our in­teg­rated mechat­ron­ic drive sys­tems of­fer in­creased flex­ib­il­ity, pro­ductiv­ity and ef­fi­ciency in the grow­ing glob­al mar­ket for con­vey­or and autonom­ous trans­port sys­tems, in­clud­ing mo­bile ro­bots, driver­less trans­port sys­tems and shuttles," ex­plains Achim Peltz, CEO of the Mo­tion Con­trol Busi­ness Unit at Siemens Di­git­al In­dus­tries. Their seam­less com­pat­ib­il­ity with Simat­ic con­trol­lers and the soft­ware-based safety solu­tion Safe Ve­lo­city for mo­bile ro­bot­ics of­fer ex­tra ad­vant­ages. 

The ex­pan­ded port­fo­lio in­cludes two main vari­ants: the Simot­ics E-1EE1 (brush­less in­tern­al ro­tors), which are par­tic­u­larly suit­able for bat­tery-powered con­vey­ing, stor­age and sort­ing sys­tems; and the Simot­ics E-1EV1 (brush­less out­run­ners), which im­press with their high ef­fi­ciency and com­pact design in in­t­ra­lo­gist­ics ap­plic­a­tions. The port­fo­lio is avail­able in 24 V and 48 V ver­sions. The port­fo­lio also of­fers trans­mis­sion solu­tions, which are only avail­able in con­junc­tion with Simot­ics E mo­tors. A not­able in­nov­a­tion is the Simot­ics E Ar­goDrive driver steer­ing sys­tem, which was spe­cially de­veloped to meet the grow­ing de­mands of in­t­ra­lo­gist­ics and auto­mated pro­duc­tion. Avail­able in Light, Stand­ard and Heavy vari­ants, it en­ables the safe and pre­cise om­ni­direc­tion­al con­trol of auto­mated guided vehicles, even when car­ry­ing heavy loads.

Loc­a­tions in Ger­many and Ro­mania

These sys­tems sup­port Siemens' sus­tain­ab­il­ity goals by provid­ing en­ergy-ef­fi­cient solu­tions and help­ing cre­ate flex­ible, scal­able and se­cure di­git­al factor­ies. The newly in­teg­rated busi­ness com­prises three loc­a­tions: two in Ger­many (St. Geor­gen and Lauf an der Peg­nitz) and one in Ro­mania (Oradea).

The ebm-papst Group first an­nounced its in­ten­tion to sell its In­dus­tri­al Drive Tech­no­logy (IDT) di­vi­sion to Siemens AG in March of 2024, and both parties signed an agree­ment to this ef­fect. The sale to Siemens AG has now been com­pleted, giv­ing IDT ac­cess to the in­ter­na­tion­al mar­ket through Siemens' glob­al Sales or­gan­iz­a­tion. All of the di­vi­sion's em­ploy­ees have been taken on by Siemens. The parties in­volved have agreed to not dis­close the price.

Sulzer is proud to an­nounce the launch of its li­censed Eco­Styrene tech­no­logy, a ground­break­ing solu­tion for the chem­ic­al re­cyc­ling of con­tam­in­ated poly­styrene ma­ter­i­als. The Eco­Styrene pro­cess ad­dresses one of the chem­ic­al re­cyc­ling in­dustry's most sig­ni­fic­ant chal­lenges: ef­fect­ively pro­cessing waste poly­styrene ma­ter­i­als that con­tain mul­tiple types of con­tam­in­ants. Un­like con­ven­tion­al re­cyc­ling meth­ods that re­quire pristine feed­stock, the tech­no­logy ef­fi­ciently pro­cesses poly­styrene waste con­tain­ing flame re­tard­ant com­pon­ents and food residue, trans­form­ing these pre­vi­ously un­re­cyc­lable ma­ter­i­als in­to valu­able re­sources that can be re­in­tro­duced in­to the pro­duc­tion cycle, in­clud­ing food con­tact ap­plic­a­tions.

Part­ner­ship across the value chain

The tech­no­logy has been de­veloped in part­ner­ship with a lead­ing tech­no­logy and solu­tion pro­vider with com­mer­cial ex­per­i­ence provid­ing flu­id-bed re­act­or tech­no­logy. Com­bin­ing Sulzer’s pro­cess and equip­ment ex­pert­ise in the field of poly­mer re­cyc­ling with a proven re­act­or tech­no­logy spear­headed the de­vel­op­ment. The stra­tegic col­lab­or­a­tion has ac­cel­er­ated the de­vel­op­ment pro­cess, mak­ing the tech­no­logy com­mer­cially avail­able today.

Sulzer Chemtech and its part­ner are build­ing a poly­styrene al­li­ance across the value chain, from waste man­ager to brand own­er, to val­or­ize poly­styrene waste. Chem­ic­al re­cyc­ling op­er­at­ors can now im­ple­ment this solu­tion to ex­pand their ac­cept­able feed­stock range, re­duce en­vir­on­ment­al im­pact, meet sus­tain­ab­il­ity tar­gets, and gen­er­ate ad­di­tion­al value from ma­ter­i­als pre­vi­ously con­sidered too con­tam­in­ated for con­ven­tion­al re­cyc­ling meth­ods.
 

De­vel­op­ment labor­at­or­ies, ma­ter­i­als re­search in­sti­tutes and test­ing fa­cil­it­ies face a vari­ety of chal­lenges when it comes to ana­lys­ing ma­ter­i­als: Particles can vary widely in form and ori­gin - be it powder, li­quid, tab­let, sand, mi­cro­plastic or pig­ment. In or­der to ana­lyse this di­versity, labor­at­or­ies have to mas­ter a bal­an­cing act between pre­ci­sion, ef­fi­ciency and prac­tic­al re­quire­ments. Ac­cur­acy and re­pro­du­cib­il­ity are par­tic­u­larly im­port­ant, as even the smal­lest de­vi­ations in particle size dis­tri­bu­tion - of­ten in the mi­cro- or nano­metre range - can have a sig­ni­fic­ant im­pact on ma­ter­i­al prop­er­ties. At the same time, the high through­put in pro­duc­tion en­vir­on­ments re­quires nu­mer­ous samples to be ana­lysed quickly without com­prom­ising on meas­ure­ment qual­ity.

This is where dy­nam­ic im­age ana­lys­is (DIA) comes in. This in­nov­at­ive tech­no­logy makes it pos­sible to re­cord a large num­ber of para­met­ers for de­term­in­ing particle size and shape in real time. "Dy­nam­ic im­age ana­lys­is has proven it­self as a vi­able R&D and qual­ity con­trol meth­od in vari­ous in­dus­tries. Particles are re­cor­ded as they flow through a meas­ur­ing cell us­ing high-speed cam­er­as or oth­er ima­ging sensors and then ana­lysed us­ing soft­ware," ex­plains Dr Chris­ti­an Moitzi, Re­search & De­vel­op­ment at Ant­on Paar GmbH. The Aus­tri­an com­pany spe­cial­ises in particle char­ac­ter­isa­tion. The devices de­veloped by the com­pany for this pur­pose are de­signed to cap­ture high-speed im­ages of mov­ing particles. One of the most im­port­ant com­pon­ents in their suc­cess­ful dy­nam­ic im­age ana­lys­ers is a uEye Warp10 high-speed cam­era from IDS Ima­ging De­vel­op­ment Sys­tems GmbH in ad­di­tion to the sample cham­ber and light­ing sys­tem.

"With the Lites­izer DIA series, the size and shape of particles can be char­ac­ter­ised eas­ily and re­li­ably by dir­ectly ana­lys­ing the particle im­ages. The most power­ful device in the series, the Lites­izer DIA 700, can meas­ure particle sizes from 0.5 mi­cro­metres to 16 mil­li­metres," em­phas­ises Dr Moitzi. Thou­sands or even mil­lions of particles can be visu­al­ised in a mat­ter of seconds dur­ing a meas­ure­ment. Thanks to the high frame rate and fast data trans­mis­sion, it is pos­sible to im­age an un­ri­valled num­ber of particles with­in a short meas­ur­ing time and ana­lyse them in real time.

1 mil­lion particles for er­rors of less than 1 per cent

"It starts with the pre­par­a­tion of a rep­res­ent­at­ive sample. This sample can con­sist of vari­ous ma­ter­i­als, e.g. powders, gran­u­lates, sus­pen­sions or even bio­lo­gic­al pre­par­a­tions such as cells. As a rule, more than one mil­lion particles are re­quired to achieve a max­im­um er­ror of less than one per cent. Samples are fed in us­ing one of three in­ter­change­able dis­per­sion units, which en­ables both dry powders and dis­per­sions to be meas­ured," says Dr Moitzi.

The sample is placed in a cham­ber in which it is con­tinu­ously moved or dis­persed. Vari­ous mech­an­isms such as vi­bra­tion, air flow or flu­id cir­cu­la­tion can be used to keep the particles in mo­tion. The particles, which move through the im­age field at a speed of up to 30 m/s, are il­lu­min­ated like strobo­scopes. To avoid mo­tion blur, the il­lu­min­a­tion pulse is short­er than 100 nano­seconds. The mag­ni­fic­a­tion can be ad­jus­ted by auto­mat­ic­ally chan­ging three lenses. 

The chal­lenge of high-speed pro­cessing

"Large amounts of data have to be pro­cessed in real time," says Chris­ti­an Moitzi, cit­ing an im­port­ant re­quire­ment for the sys­tem. The 10GigE Vis­ion high-speed cam­era in­teg­rated with the help of the IDS peak SDK re­cords an im­age se­quence at the re­quired high frame rate and thus en­ables the ob­ser­va­tion of fast particle move­ments.

In ad­di­tion to the speed, the in­ter­face and sensor are de­cis­ive for the se­lec­tion of the cam­era mod­el. The uEye Warp10 with in­teg­rated Sony IMX255 glob­al shut­ter CMOS sensor de­liv­ers everything the de­mand­ing task re­quires: high res­ol­u­tion, high frame rates and noise-free im­age re­pro­duc­tion. Readout noise and dark cur­rent are among the low­est val­ues in the en­tire sensor mar­ket. With its res­ol­u­tion of 5.10 MP (2472 x 2064 px) at 220 fps, the cam­era is par­tic­u­larly suit­able for ap­plic­a­tions where high speeds are re­quired. The high res­ol­u­tion en­sures that even the smal­lest de­tails are cap­tured.

"Com­pared to 1GigE cam­er­as, the uEye Warp10 achieves up to 10 times the trans­mis­sion band­width. To­geth­er with the com­bin­a­tion of high res­ol­u­tion and high dy­nam­ic range, the GV-7090WP presents it­self as an ul­tra-fast, power­ful all-round­er," says Mar­cus Rem­bold, Product Own­er 2D Cam­er­as at IDS, de­scrib­ing the cam­era mod­el used. The ro­bust, Gen­ICam-com­pli­ant uEye Warp10 cam­era can for­ward im­age in­form­a­tion in the Gig­abit Eth­er­net-based net­work with vir­tu­ally no delay. It there­fore shows its strengths pre­cisely in in­spec­tion tasks such as this, where ob­jects need to be re­cor­ded and ana­lysed in full de­tail and without mo­tion blur.

Soph­ist­ic­ated im­age ana­lys­is al­gorithms

"The cam­era im­ages are trans­ferred to the PC, where they are seg­men­ted and vari­ous size and shape para­met­ers of each in­di­vidu­al particle are cal­cu­lated," says Chris­ti­an Moitzi, ex­plain­ing the next steps in im­age pro­cessing. "The heart of DIA lies in ana­lys­ing the cap­tured im­ages. Soph­ist­ic­ated im­age ana­lys­is al­gorithms and soft­ware are used to pro­cess the im­ages and ex­tract rel­ev­ant in­form­a­tion about the particles. The user re­ceives, prac­tic­ally in real time, av­er­aged size dis­tri­bu­tion func­tions as a res­ult. However, it also has the op­tion of ana­lys­ing in­di­vidu­al particles and fil­ter­ing im­ages of particles with spe­cial prop­er­ties from the whole."

Ex­ample build­ing ma­ter­i­als in­dustry

The ana­lysed para­met­ers provide de­tailed in­sights in­to the prop­er­ties and be­ha­viour of a ma­ter­i­al sample. These can be bulk ma­ter­i­al prop­er­ties such as dens­ity, flow­ab­il­ity, bal­list­ics and oth­ers. Use­ful in­form­a­tion for sec­tors such as the build­ing ma­ter­i­als in­dustry. "The qual­ity of ce­ment de­pends heav­ily on the size and shape of its particles, which af­fect its sur­face, com­press­ive strength and cur­ing time," says Chris­ti­an Moitzi. Particles that are too fine cause the end product to set exo­thermic­ally, while particles that are too large do not hy­drate com­pletely. The flow­ab­il­ity and wa­ter re­quire­ment of ce­ment can vary drastic­ally between reg­u­lar (spher­ic­al) and ir­reg­u­lar particles. These factors can lead to crack­ing, shrink­age or poros­ity and thus severely im­pair the qual­ity, dur­ab­il­ity and mech­an­ic­al prop­er­ties of the ce­ment.

Out­look In­vest­ing in a dy­nam­ic im­age ana­lys­er such as the Lites­izer DIA 700, which is equipped with an ul­tra-fast, ex­tremely high-res­ol­u­tion 10 GigE in­dus­tri­al cam­era, pays off in the long term. Thanks to fast im­age pro­cessing and pre­cise ana­lys­is in real time, pro­cess se­quences are op­tim­ised and pro­duc­tion de­cisions are made on the basis of bet­ter data. More pre­cise particle char­ac­ter­isa­tion en­ables bet­ter pro­cess con­trol and op­tim­ised ma­ter­i­al us­age - for ex­ample through more pre­cise dos­ing and the re­duc­tion of faulty batches. The avail­ab­il­ity of this high-speed cam­era tech­no­logy and fast im­age pro­cessing makes dy­nam­ic im­age ana­lys­is a par­tic­u­larly at­tract­ive, fu­ture-proof al­tern­at­ive to tra­di­tion­al meth­ods such as laser dif­frac­tion
 

The con­fig­ur­able safety mod­ules of the PSR­mod­u­lar XC product fam­ily from Phoenix Con­tact have been cer­ti­fied for use in po­ten­tially ex­plos­ive areas. This ex­tends the range of ap­plic­a­tions fur­ther.

The PSR­mod­u­lar XC product fam­ily is de­signed for use in ex­treme am­bi­ent con­di­tions. With the easy con­fig­ur­a­tion, safety-re­lated ap­plic­a­tions up to SIL 3 and PL e can be real­ized. The mod­ules in the XC series already had an ex­ten­ded op­er­at­ing tem­per­at­ure range of up to 70°C and spe­cial cor­ro­sion pro­tec­tion with an ad­di­tion­al con­form­al coat­ing on the prin­ted cir­cuit board. The mod­ules can now also be used in zone 2 (ATEX) and Class I zone 2 (HAZLOC) haz­ard­ous areas up to tem­per­at­ure class T4. The XC port­fo­lio com­prises a total of five mod­ules, par­tic­u­larly for pro­cess en­gin­eer­ing ap­plic­a­tions.
 

Leine Linde is proud to launch a com­pre­hens­ive new safety range along­side the cut­ting-edge FSI 600 series. The series is a fam­ily of safety-cer­ti­fied rotary en­coders, en­gin­eered to meet the highest func­tion­al safety stand­ards. With this ini­ti­at­ive, Leine Linde en­ables in­dus­tri­al play­ers to en­hance work­place safety while meet­ing grow­ing glob­al reg­u­lat­ory de­mands. As safety re­quire­ments in in­dus­tri­al auto­ma­tion con­tin­ue to rise, so does the need for cer­ti­fied, high-per­form­ance safety products. Leine Linde’s new solu­tion de­liv­ers on both – help­ing lead­ing man­u­fac­tur­ers pro­tect people, ma­chinery and pro­duc­tion en­vir­on­ments world­wide.

Cer­ti­fied for the most de­mand­ing ap­plic­a­tions

The FSI (Func­tion­al Safety In­teg­rated) 600 series marks a sig­ni­fic­ant step for­ward in Leine Linde’s port­fo­lio. With its SIL3 and PLe cat­egory 4, func­tion­al safety com­pli­ance it is cer­ti­fied for use in the most de­mand­ing safety ap­plic­a­tions. The ab­so­lute in­duct­ive sens­ing of­fers a dur­able, con­tact­less tech­no­logy for long-term re­li­ab­il­ity in harsh en­vir­on­ments. PROFIsafe over PROFINET en­sures safe com­mu­nic­a­tion in real-time in­dus­tri­al net­works.

The first product in the FSI 600 series, FSI 608, is a unique safety en­coder that fully com­plies with the latest stand­ard: IEC 61800-5-3, cov­er­ing func­tion­al, elec­tric­al and en­vir­on­ment­al en­coder safety. FSI 608 is among the first en­coders on the mar­ket to meet this level. With mul­tiple mech­an­ic­al op­tions, scal­able res­ol­u­tion and com­pre­hens­ive built-in safety func­tions, the FSI 608 of­fers easy in­teg­ra­tion in­to di­verse auto­ma­tion setups.

Start­ing out in 1949 as Re­li­ance Man­u­fac­tur­ing Com­pany Pty Ltd (RMC) with a drive to trans­form in­dustry, RWC was later born from the de­sire to chal­lenge con­ven­tion. A ma­jor land­mark for the com­pany came in 2018 with the ac­quis­i­tion of John Guest and its glob­ally renowned push-fit brands.

Ti­tan’s NSF-Ap­proved bever­age meter, 800-series tur­bine flow­met­ers, and the At­rato® ul­tra­son­ic flow­met­er range all in­cor­por­ate John Guest con­nect­ors, which are ex­tens­ively used in the food and bever­age in­dustry for their spe­cial­ised ‘push-to-con­nect’ solu­tions.

A Part­ner­ship Built on Trus­ted Tech­no­logy and Pre­ci­sion En­gin­eer­ing

In 2023, fol­low­ing years of evolving in­nov­a­tion since the launch of JG Po­larClean by John Guest in 2010, RWC teamed up with Ti­tan En­ter­prises to de­liv­er an ex­cit­ing solu­tion for the bever­age in­dustry. A mu­tu­al cus­tom­er dis­cus­sion sparked the R&D col­lab­or­a­tion, as users were already pair­ing RWC’s Po­larClean push-fit con­nect­ors along­side Ti­tan’s Bever­age meters in beer dis­pens­ing sys­tems. However, in­teg­rat­ing the two products re­quired ad­di­tion­al modi­fic­a­tions - in­tro­du­cing cost and com­plex­ity to a cus­tom­er’s in­stall­a­tion. To­geth­er, RWC and Ti­tan set out to change that.

To sim­pli­fy in­stall­a­tion and en­hance ef­fi­ciency, RWC and Ti­tan began a part­ner­ship that led Ti­tan to lever­age its ex­pert­ise in tur­bine tech­no­logy and design, while RWC con­trib­uted its in­nov­at­ive tool­ing cap­ab­il­it­ies. The aim of the col­lab­or­at­ive project was to provide a stream­lined, state-of-the-art single unit for beer dis­pens­ing sys­tems by fully in­teg­rat­ing Ti­tan’s tur­bine flow tech­no­logy with­in RWC’s pi­on­eer­ing Po­larClean con­nect­or. 

Phil Lacey, RWC’s Glob­al Flu­id Tech Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment Dir­ect­or, stated “When we knew we needed a flow­met­er for our Po­larClean sys­tem, Ti­tan made ab­so­lute sense as they are the mar­ket lead­er in the space. They have been an ab­so­lute pleas­ure to de­vel­op this product with and we look for­ward to see­ing how the wider mar­ket re­ceives this new in­nov­a­tion.” 

Over­com­ing Chal­lenges Through Col­lab­or­a­tion

The primary chal­lenge was fit­ting the tur­bine in­to the Po­larClean tube/con­nect­or without com­prom­ising either sys­tem. Through work­shops, pro­to­typ­ing and design, the teams de­veloped a mod­i­fied ver­sion of RWC’s straight Po­larClean uni­on. SLA (ste­re­o­litho­graphy ap­par­at­us) 3D-prin­ted mod­els were used to cre­ate pro­to­types, which were then tested and cal­ib­rated by Ti­tan be­fore cus­tom­er tri­als.

Neil Han­nay, Seni­or R&D En­gin­eer at Ti­tan En­ter­prises, re­flec­ted: “Work­ing with RWC was re­fresh­ing. Their ex­pert­ise in tool­mak­ing made the de­vel­op­ment and pro­to­typ­ing pro­cess a smooth jour­ney. Open, frank, and real­ist­ic dis­cus­sions, along with reg­u­lar meet­ings, kept the project on track.”

Josh Smith, Project Man­ager at RWC, ex­plained: “By com­bin­ing Ti­tan’s ex­pert­ise in flow­met­ers and our own ex­pert­ise in push-fit tech­no­logy, this new product has rep­res­en­ted a shared com­mit­ment to qual­ity, in­nov­a­tion and de­liv­er­ing value to our cus­tom­ers.”

De­liv­er­ing a Dif­fer­en­ti­ated Solu­tion to Cus­tom­ers

Once the fi­nal design was val­id­ated, RWC de­veloped the in­jec­tion mould­ing tool for the Po­larClean body, while Ti­tan man­aged the sensor and tur­bine tech­no­logy. After minor modi­fic­a­tions, the first units were shipped to cus­tom­ers for fi­nal per­form­ance val­id­a­tion.

The part­ner­ship res­ul­ted in a fully in­teg­rated in­nov­at­ive solu­tion for the bever­age in­dustry: the JG Po­larClean sys­tem uses ‘tube-in-tube’ tech­no­logy to en­sure beer is kept ex­tra cold and con­di­tioned from the keg to the beer font, even without the need for a cel­lar. Fea­tur­ing a stand­ard 3-wire con­nect­or, this state-of-the-art product sim­pli­fies beer dis­pense sys­tem in­stall­a­tions. The JG Po­larClean Coaxi­al Flow Meter ac­cur­ately meas­ures li­quid flow en­abling sys­tem users to mon­it­or de­mand or sup­ply us­age in coaxi­al cool­ing sys­tems. 
 

HIK­MI­CRO, a sub­si­di­ary of HIK­VI­SION has form­ally entered the glob­al in­stru­ment­a­tion mar­ket with the in­tro­duc­tion of high-pre­ci­sion Cori­ol­is and Ul­tra­son­ic flow meters. This stra­tegic ex­pan­sion marks a sig­ni­fic­ant step to­wards HIK­MI­CRO’s am­bi­tion to de­liv­er a com­pre­hens­ive in­dus­tri­al plat­form that unites pro­duc­tion con­trol, pre­dict­ive main­ten­ance and safety with­in a single, af­ford­able solu­tion. 

“Factor­ies in­creas­ingly need af­ford­able solu­tions for pro­duc­tion con­trol and di­git­al trans­form­a­tion,” said Stefan Li, Over­seas Mar­ket Dir­ect­or of HIK­MI­CRO. "Our ex­pan­sion in­to in­stru­ment­a­tion nat­ur­ally ex­tends from our thermal ima­ging ex­pert­ise. As a sub­si­di­ary of HIK­VI­SION es­tab­lished in 2016, HIK­MI­CRO is one of the few man­u­fac­tur­ers that in­teg­rates chip design and man­u­fac­tur­ing, core al­gorithm de­vel­op­ment, and test­ing and pro­duc­tion."

The new flow meters build on HIK­MI­CRO’s core com­pet­en­cies in sensor de­vel­op­ment, sig­nal pro­cessing and cal­ib­ra­tion. The FC00 Cori­ol­is Mass Flow Meter de­liv­ers ±0.1% li­quid and ±0.5% gas meas­ure­ment ac­cur­acy, mak­ing it ideal for food and bever­age in­dus­tries where pre­ci­sion is crit­ic­al. Its AI-en­hanced tem­per­at­ure com­pens­a­tion en­sures ≤±0.001 g/cm³ dens­ity ac­cur­acy while built-in dia­gnostics mon­it­or sys­tem in­teg­rity. The product fea­tures ul­tra-fast 8000 samples/sec di­git­al pro­cessing that sig­ni­fic­antly en­hances meas­ure­ment re­li­ab­il­ity and re­sponse times for de­mand­ing in­dus­tri­al en­vir­on­ments. Mean­while, the FU00 Ul­tra­son­ic Flow Meter achieves ±0.5% ac­cur­acy in wa­ter ap­plic­a­tions with its non-in­vas­ive design that elim­in­ates pres­sure loss and down­time. Its smart AI dia­gnostics con­tinu­ously eval­u­ate sig­nal qual­ity and probe per­form­ance to main­tain op­tim­al op­er­a­tion. Though the in­stru­ments them­selves de­liv­er im­press­ive ac­cur­acy and ad­apt­ive per­form­ance, they are part of a broad­er ob­ject­ive: to help in­dus­tries di­git­ise pro­cesses without in­cur­ring the high costs that have his­tor­ic­ally slowed ad­op­tion.

HIK­MI­CRO’s entry in­to flow meas­ure­ment un­der­scores its com­mit­ment to bring­ing re­li­able, high-ac­cur­acy tech­no­logy to a wider mar­ket. By com­bin­ing in-house chip design and ad­vanced al­gorithms with man­u­fac­tur­ing scale, the com­pany is in a strong po­s­i­tion to de­liv­er in­stru­ments that meet de­mand­ing in­dus­tri­al stand­ards without the tra­di­tion­al price bar­ri­er.
 

WIKA has ex­ten­ded its port­fo­lio in the field of level meas­ure­ment. The TLS vi­brat­ing level switch is now avail­able with EHEDG ap­prov­al for hy­gien­ic ap­plic­a­tions. The new TLS-H ver­sion ful­fils the cri­ter­ia of the EHEDG clas­si­fic­a­tion “TYPE EL CLASS I”. The in­stru­ment is there­fore ideal for use in sens­it­ive pro­duc­tion areas such as the food and phar­ma­ceut­ic­al in­dus­tries. In ad­di­tion, the TLS-H ful­fils the stand­ards of EC Reg­u­la­tion 1935/2004 and Good Man­u­fac­tur­ing Prac­tice (GMP). These cer­ti­fic­a­tions guar­an­tee max­im­um safety and qual­ity in the pro­duc­tion and pro­cessing of food and phar­ma­ceut­ic­al products. With its ro­bust and easy-to-clean design, the vi­brat­ing level switch con­trib­utes to com­pli­ance with the strict­est hy­giene guidelines. 

The TLS-H in hy­gien­ic design can be used for CIP (clean­ing in place) and SIP (ster­il­isa­tion in place). It is avail­able with two elec­tric­al out­puts: TLS-HC with ASC4 con­nect­or and TLS-HM with M12 con­nect­or. TLS-H is avail­able with dif­fer­ent sur­face rough­nesses to meet the spe­cif­ic re­quire­ments of the re­spect­ive ap­plic­a­tion. A large num­ber of hy­gien­ic pro­cess con­nec­tions en­ables easy in­teg­ra­tion in­to dif­fer­ent pro­cesses. The vi­brat­ing level switches are, de­pend­ing on the ver­sion, suit­able for a pro­cess tem­per­at­ure of -40 ... +150 °C [-40 ... +302 °F] and an op­er­at­ing pres­sure of -1 ... +64 bar [-14 ... +928 psi].
 

The VP­Flow­Scope M Thermal In-line ifrom VPIn­stru­ments s a multi-func­tion­al device of­fer­ing bi-dir­ec­tion­al flow meas­ure­ment, pres­sure meas­ure­ment, tem­per­at­ure meas­ure­ment and total flow mon­it­or­ing. De­signed for point-of-use con­sump­tion meas­ure­ments, this state-of-the-art thermal mass flow sensor guar­an­tees ef­fi­ciency, re­li­ab­il­ity and un­par­alleled ease of main­ten­ance.It is avail­able with 4-20 mA/Mod­bus RTU or PoE (Mod­bus TCP) con­nectiv­ity. Quick Con­nect tech­no­logy en­ables easy in­stall­a­tion and safe, pre­cise align­ment. The pat­en­ted VP­Sensor­Cart­ridge® en­ables quick on-site ser­vi­cing. Ideal for smal­ler dia­met­ers (1" to 2"), the Flow­Scope is per­fect for point-of-use and sub­meter­ing ap­plic­a­tions.

Re­cyc­able sensor cart­ridge

Thanks to its VP­Sensor­Cart­ridge® tech­no­logy, the VP­Flow­Scope M Thermal In-line elim­in­ates the need for tra­di­tion­al re­cal­ib­ra­tion. Users can simply ex­change the sensor cart­ridge on-site in­stead, sig­ni­fic­antly re­du­cing down­time and main­ten­ance costs. This in­nov­a­tion en­sures con­tinu­ous, pre­cise meas­ure­ments with min­im­al op­er­a­tion­al dis­rup­tion. Used VP­Sensor­Cart­ridges can be re­turned for re­fur­bish­ment, re­du­cing waste and con­serving re­sources. Users will re­ceive a re­fund for each re­turned cart­ridge, and as an ad­ded bo­nus, VPIn­stru­ments will plant a tree on their be­half for every cart­ridge re­turned.

Em­power­ing in­dus­tries with real-time in­sights

The VP­Flow­Scope M Thermal In-line is de­signed for a wide range of in­dus­tri­al ap­plic­a­tions, in­clud­ing com­pressed air mon­it­or­ing for leak de­tec­tion and cost al­loc­a­tion. It can meas­ure in­dus­tri­al gases such as N₂, O₂, CO₂, He and Ar, as well as oth­er dry, non-cor­ros­ive gases. It can also be used for en­ergy op­tim­isa­tion and pre­dict­ive main­ten­ance in man­u­fac­tur­ing and pro­duc­tion fa­cil­it­ies.

The new KROHNE OPT­IBAR PC 1010 is offered in a ver­sion with a ceram­ic dia­phragm in the ul­tra-com­pact pres­sure trans­mit­ter range. Users can now also be­ne­fit from the ad­vant­ages of the ma­ter­i­al in low-cost, small pres­sure trans­mit­ters. Thanks to its meas­ur­ing cell made of high-per­form­ance ceram­ics, the gauge pres­sure trans­mit­ter of­fers sig­ni­fic­antly in­creased res­ist­ance to pres­sure surges, wa­ter ham­mer, ab­ra­sion and cor­ro­sion com­pared to metal­lic dia­phragms. This makes the OPT­IBAR PC 1010 par­tic­u­larly suit­able for wa­ter ap­plic­a­tions in which the jerky start-up of pumps can severely dam­age the stain­less-steel meas­ur­ing cell of con­ven­tion­al pres­sure trans­mit­ters.

Ro­bust design with IP68 op­tion

For pump con­trol in man­holes prone to flood­ing, the pres­sure trans­mit­ter is avail­able as an IP68 rated ver­sion de­signed to be wa­ter­proof. Thanks to its ro­bust design, the pres­sure trans­mit­ter is also ideal for long-term stable pres­sure and level meas­ure­ment in many oth­er in­dus­tries as well as in fact­ory auto­ma­tion. It of­fers a cost-ef­fect­ive solu­tion for simple ap­plic­a­tions with gases, va­pours and li­quids up to 40 bar and tem­per­at­ures up to +125°C.

The dry ca­pa­cit­ive meas­ur­ing cell of the pres­sure trans­mit­ter en­sures in­creased pro­cess re­li­ab­il­ity. It works without filling oil. Leak­age of filling oil in­to the pro­cess is there­fore ruled out from the out­set by the design. The OPT­IBAR PC 1010 is avail­able with both a re­cessed and a front-flush ceram­ic dia­phragm. The pres­sure trans­mit­ter is ex­tremely tem­per­at­ure and long-term stable and has ex­cel­lent ac­cur­acy for its device class. It is also avail­able in an in­trins­ic­ally safe ver­sion with ATEX/IECEx ap­prov­al for use in Zone 0.
 

Optris is in­tro­du­cing new di­git­al in­ter­faces for pro­cess auto­ma­tion for the latest pyro­met­er mod­els from the CT, CT­laser, CTra­tio, and CS­vi­sion series, as well as the Eth­er­net-based Xi series in­frared cam­er­as (ETH). This enabes even more seam­less in­teg­ra­tion in­to in­dus­tri­al auto­ma­tion sys­tems.

With the new di­git­al in­ter­faces, Optris sup­ports com­mon in­dus­tri­al pro­to­cols such as Profinet, Eth­er­Net/IP, Eth­er­net TCP/IP, and Mod­bus TCP. This en­sures re­li­able real-time trans­mis­sion of tem­per­at­ure meas­ure­ments, en­han­cing con­trol and mon­it­or­ing of man­u­fac­tur­ing pro­cesses.

Ro­bust Net­work­ing for De­mand­ing En­vir­on­ments

The new In­dus­tri­al Eth­er­net in­ter­face mod­ules, like all pre­vi­ous in­ter­faces, are seam­lessly in­teg­rated in­to the CT elec­tron­ics. In­stall­a­tion is simple via a 4-pin D-coded sock­et with IP67 pro­tec­tion and stand­ard­ized in­dus­tri­al net­work cables.

For CS­vi­sion and Eth­er­net-based Xi Series (ETH), the new in­ter­faces are provided as sep­ar­ate in­ter­face boxes. A wide range of cable lengths al­lows for per­fect ad­apt­a­tion to dif­fer­ent in­stall­a­tion con­di­tions. All com­pon­ents are de­signed to meet IP67 stand­ards, en­sur­ing op­tim­al pro­tec­tion for in­dus­tri­al use in de­mand­ing pro­duc­tion en­vir­on­ments.

For quick and hassle-free com­mis­sion­ing, Optris provides pre-con­figured EDS and GSD files. These en­able easy device im­ple­ment­a­tion in­to ex­ist­ing con­trol sys­tems and sig­ni­fic­antly re­duce in­teg­ra­tion ef­fort. Ad­di­tion­ally, the di­git­al in­ter­faces are cer­ti­fied to en­sure seam­less com­pat­ib­il­ity with com­mon in­dus­tri­al stand­ards.

Op­tim­ized Pro­cesses Through Smart Tem­per­at­ure Mon­it­or­ing

Thanks to en­hanced net­work con­nectiv­ity, Optris' in­frared tem­per­at­ure meas­ure­ment devices can now be in­teg­rated even more pre­cisely and flex­ibly in­to in­dus­tri­al pro­cesses. This en­ables im­proved pro­cess con­trol, re­duces down­time, and in­creases pro­duc­tion ef­fi­ciency. 

For most mem­bers of the pub­lic, the thought of their loc­al bakery calls to mind the smell of freshly baked bread and a de­li­cious choice of pastries – sweet and sa­vory. Yet be­hind the scenes, in­dustry in­siders know that the pro­cess of get­ting baked goods to the con­sumer is full of en­gin­eer­ing chal­lenges. Hy­giene stand­ards, pack­aging chal­lenges, sticky dough and hot ovens mean that a lot of ex­pert­ise and in­vest­ment goes in­to de­liv­er­ing these treats.

Daniel Nuss­baum, Man­ager Power­train and In­side Sales at Regal Rexnord, ex­plains how plug-and-play con­vey­or solu­tions can re­duce cost and add sim­pli­city for pro­cessing and pack­aging solu­tions.

In the fast-paced world of baker­ies, the pro­duc­tion line is al­ways un­der pres­sure to keep up with the de­mand for freshly baked goods. There is no op­por­tun­ity to store up a re­serve of product to mit­ig­ate un­ex­pec­ted down­time, so re­li­able op­er­a­tion and ease of main­ten­ance is es­sen­tial to re­main com­pet­it­ive. Con­vey­or sys­tems are es­sen­tial in­fra­struc­ture for mass pro­duc­tion, from the ini­tial prov­ing stages, through to bak­ing, pack­ing and sort­ing, so it makes sense to make sure they are as ef­fi­cient and re­li­able as pos­sible.

Sys­tem in­teg­ra­tion vs. com­mod­ity pro­cure­ment

For some op­er­at­ors, the com­pon­ents that make up con­vey­or sys­tems - such as bear­ings, chains, belts and mo­tors – are viewed as ‘com­mod­ity products’. Parts that need to be bought and re­placed fairly fre­quently to avoid costly down­time, but that can’t really add any spe­cif­ic value to the over­all pro­ductiv­ity of the sys­tem. As such, they in­struct their pro­cure­ment man­agers to simply source products based on con­sid­er­a­tions such as price and avail­ab­il­ity.

However, this is rarely the ideal pro­cess. Regal Rexnord brought a mul­ti­tude of brands to­geth­er, each with spe­cial­ized products de­signed spe­cific­ally for food pro­cessing and baked goods, which can each be in­teg­rated in­to a single, en­gin­eered pack­age.

Wheth­er a cus­tom­er is in­vest­ing in a brand-new pro­duc­tion line, or is look­ing to up­grade their ex­ist­ing fa­cil­ity, en­gin­eers are able to ap­proach the chal­lenge as a true sys­tems in­teg­rat­or should; build­ing a solu­tion that is spe­cified and de­signed with each unique chal­lenge in mind.

For ex­ample, en­gin­eers can spe­cify bear­ings from vari­ous brands de­pend­ing on the spe­cif­ic needs of the cli­ent’s ap­plic­a­tion. For sys­tems that would be hard to ac­cess, Regal Rexnord can sup­ply sealed for life bear­ings that re­quire little to no main­ten­ance; for mix­ing ap­plic­a­tions with high levels of flour dust there are the IP69K-rated Seal­mas­ter™ bear­ings; or for sys­tems that are sub­jec­ted to daily wash­downs there are stain­less steel solu­tions.

With a single en­gin­eer­ing team spe­cify­ing all the com­pon­ents with­in the con­vey­or sys­tem, the end-user can rest as­sured that all the parts will be fit for pur­pose and in­teg­rate seam­lessly.

Single source sup­ply – the proof is in the pud­ding

Pro­cure­ment spe­cial­ists and main­ten­ance en­gin­eers can also be­ne­fit from the single source solu­tion on of­fer from Regal Rexnord. While the com­pon­ents can be spe­cified across mul­tiple brands, end-users can spe­cify all products and en­gin­eer­ing ser­vices from a single en­tity, us­ing the most con­veni­ent sales cen­ter de­pend­ing on the cli­ent’s loc­a­tions.
All brands with­in the Regal Rexnord fam­ily can of­fer ex­pert ad­vice and sys­tems in­teg­ra­tion across the whole power­train. For pro­cure­ment teams this guar­an­tees that pri­cing is dir­ect from the man­u­fac­turer whilst only a single sup­pli­er needs to be on­boarded. By man­aging its glob­al sup­ply chain to max­im­um ef­fect, the com­pany makes your lo­gist­ics a lot sim­pler.
The be­ne­fits here ex­tend to af­ter­sales sup­port, where main­ten­ance teams can ac­cess spare parts and ser­vice en­gin­eers from loc­al Regal Rexnord fa­cil­it­ies. These teams can sup­port with con­di­tion mon­it­or­ing and pre­vent­at­ive main­ten­ance plans which means that they work to pre­vent costly, un­planned down­time.
 

NET­Z­SCH is ex­pand­ing its rotary lobe pump product port­fo­lio with the new TOR­NADO® T1 XXLB-F size. The pump has been spe­cially de­veloped for de­mand­ing ap­plic­a­tions and en­ables ef­fi­cient con­vey­ing in nu­mer­ous areas of ap­plic­a­tion with high flow rates. With the new TOR­NADO® T1 XXLB-F, NET­Z­SCH is set­ting new stand­ards in the pump­ing of highly vis­cous, solids-laden or thick flu­ids. Sens­it­ive li­quids are con­veyed gently by the pump. Chal­len­ging ap­plic­a­tions such as MBR fil­tra­tion, sewage lift­ing sys­tems, well­point dewa­ter­ing or the pump­ing of highly vis­cous me­dia such as molasses or magma in the sug­ar in­dustry are no prob­lem for the rotary lobe pump. 

The XXLB-F en­ables pump­ing at high­er pres­sures and lar­ger flow rates, even with vary­ing op­er­at­ing pres­sures. Easy clean­ing and main­ten­ance of the pump res­ult in less wear, less down­time and there­fore cost sav­ings. The new size is the op­tim­um choice for ap­plic­a­tions with the highest de­mands on the pump used.

With the new type 4083, Schubert & Salzer is ex­tend­ing its product range by a three-way ball sec­tor valve with elec­tric ac­tu­at­or for op­er­a­tion in di­vert­ing or mix­ing func­tions. The quarter turn valve with a sup­ply voltage of 24–240 V DC/AC (50/60 Hz) en­ables high-pre­ci­sion con­trol (range­ab­il­ity of 100:1) over a wide con­trol range with Kvs val­ues that are around 20% high­er than those of com­mon al­tern­at­ives. Due to the spe­cial con­tour of the ball sec­tor, the total Kv value (volu­met­ric flow) re­mains vir­tu­ally con­stant in any valve po­s­i­tion.

Due to their unique prop­er­ties, elec­tric­ally or pneu­mat­ic­ally ac­tu­ated three-way ball sec­tor valves of­fer par­tic­u­larly high ad­ded value in the tem­per­at­ure con­trol and mix­ing pro­cesses of the steel, chem­ic­al, food and bever­age in­dus­tries as well as in power gen­er­a­tion, the man­u­fac­ture of plastic and rub­ber products and for use in test benches.
 

Wan­gen Pumps has en­hanced the design of its trus­ted TWIN NG pump, sig­ni­fic­antly im­prov­ing its per­form­ance and re­du­cing main­ten­ance re­quire­ments. The res­ult is a proven hy­gien­ic pump­ing solu­tion that per­forms bet­ter for longer, boost­ing up­time and re­du­cing li­fe­cycle costs for cus­tom­ers in the food, phar­ma­ceut­ic­als and cos­met­ics man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tors. Twin NG screw pumps are de­signed to re­li­ably handle low to highly vis­cous, volat­ile, or gaseous products in ap­plic­a­tions that de­mand max­im­um hy­giene and ef­fi­ciency. Avail­able in sev­er­al sizes, the TWIN pumps of­fer a max­im­um flow rate of 200 m³/h and a max­im­um dif­fer­en­tial pres­sure of 25 bar. 

Im­proved TCO

The first design en­hance­ment in­volves re­pla­cing the Twin NG’s mo­tor coup­ling with a lan­tern coup­ling. This in­nov­at­ive fea­ture pre­vents pump shaft mis­align­ment, which re­duces stress and vi­bra­tion, thereby en­han­cing the lifespan of the pump and mo­tor. With less wear on pump shafts and bear­ings, main­ten­ance re­quire­ments are min­im­ised, and ser­vice in­ter­vals are ex­ten­ded. When main­ten­ance is ne­ces­sary, it is easi­er to per­form since no shaft align­ment is re­quired. This lan­tern design thus lowers the total cost of own­er­ship (TCO) and op­tim­ises up­time.

An­oth­er be­ne­fit of the new lan­tern design is smooth­er op­er­a­tion in de­mand­ing con­di­tions, par­tic­u­larly where the Twin NG is used to pump vis­cous and ab­ras­ive flu­ids un­der high pres­sure. The lan­tern coup­ling also en­ables bet­ter seal­ing ar­range­ments, min­im­iz­ing leaks and the risk of product con­tam­in­a­tion.

Bet­ter hy­giene

The second design im­prove­ment to the Twin NG pump is the op­tion to in­stall the pump us­ing hy­gien­ic ma­chine feet in­stead of a base plate. These feet are much easi­er to clean than tra­di­tion­al base plates be­cause they min­im­ise sur­faces where dirt and bac­teria can ac­cu­mu­late, greatly re­du­cing the risk of hid­den con­tam­in­a­tion as­so­ci­ated with sol­id base plates. The in­di­vidu­al feet also fa­cil­it­ate more ef­fect­ive wash-down and drain­age, without the need for elab­or­ate drain­age slopes and holes. 

Like the pump’s lan­tern coup­ling, the ma­chine feet help to dampen noise and vi­bra­tion, re­du­cing wear on the pump and as­so­ci­ated equip­ment. In­di­vidu­ally ad­justable, ma­chine feet en­able pre­cise lev­el­ling, mak­ing it easi­er to align the pump with ex­ist­ing pip­ing and re­du­cing the risk of er­rors dur­ing in­stall­a­tion. The feet also provide bet­ter ac­cess to the pump dur­ing routine main­ten­ance, where­as base plates may re­quire dis­as­sembly be­fore vi­tal com­pon­ents can be reached. Ma­chine feet there­fore im­prove pump avail­ab­il­ity by re­du­cing ser­vi­cing time.

Ad­di­tion­al be­ne­fits of ma­chine feet in­clude a bet­ter abil­ity to com­pensate for thermal ex­pan­sion, pre­vent­ing dam­age to the pump and pip­ing, as well as bet­ter sta­bil­ity dur­ing main­ten­ance at the pump’s flu­id end. Fur­ther­more, ma­chine feet gen­er­ally re­quire less room than a base plate, which is im­port­ant in con­fined spaces. Elim­in­at­ing the base plate also re­duces ma­ter­i­al and fab­ric­a­tion costs, mak­ing pump trans­port­a­tion and hand­ling easi­er.