Digitalisation in drive technology : Customer added value from drive data
Predictive maintenance is the systematic continuation of condition maintenance with the aim of proactively maintaining machinery and equipment and detecting changes , reducing downtimes and increasing the efficiency of the entire plant . A status-oriented maintenance replaces the traditional time-based maintenance .
Especially for drive systems in demanding production environments where industrial gear unit installations are usually used in sensitive applications and their failure can cause severe damage , for example in intralogistics , the food industry or the heavy duty sector , condition monitoring supplements the triad of gear unit , electric motor and frequency inverter with improved safety and reliability . This is where condition monitoring for predictive maintenance comes into play : Based on intelligent algorithms and software in an IIoT environment , the networked drive units can collect their condition data in the inverter ’ s own PLC and pre-process it together with data of connected sensors and actuators . The result of the pre-processing or the complete data can be optionally transmitted to an edge device . There , data of all subsystems is managed and evaluated . It is then available as pre-selected and edited smart data for further use and clear visualisation .
DATA ANALYSIS INSTEAD OF JUST DATA READING
A concrete application example is the sensorless determination of the optimum oil change time based on the oil temperature . This is based on the fact that the oil temperature
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Fast , efficient and comprehensive evaluation of analogue and digital data by the intelligent PLC in the NORD drive technology forms the basis for condition monitoring and predictive maintenance .
Image : NORD DRIVESYSTEMS is a key factor for oil ageing in gear units . This information in combination with available gear unit parameters and specific operational parameters make it possible to precisely calculate the oil change time . A physical temperature sensor is not required . The pre-processing of drive data takes place in the NORD frequency inverter ’ s integrated PLC that is used as an evaluation unit . The customer can access the calculated data via all common interfaces .
THE RIGHT PLC SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE FOR EACH SOLUTION
The drive equipment can be optionally extended and adjusted to the respective automation task . Customers can select what tasks ( drive monitoring , drive control , process control ) they want to directly shift into the drive . In smaller production areas , this scalability offers the possibility to gain first experiences before reorganising the plant . There are three configuration levels available . At the first level , the drive unit PLC only performs the drive monitoring . The drive parameters are pre-processed in the PLC and communicated to the higher level control system that is responsible for drive and process control . At the medium level , the PLC integrates the drive control and also runs drive-related functions . At the higher configuration level , the inverter PLC completely replaces the higher level control system . Apart from the communication to a control unit , a local data management without internet connection can optionally apply the data .
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