Digital Displacement pump wins Agri award.

The Danfoss DDP096 Digital Displacement® pump has been named a winner of Agritechnica’s prestigious Systems & Components Trophy 2022. Presented by DLG, the German Agricultural Society, the award recognises the inventive spirit of industry suppliers and their importance to agricultural technology. The Digital Displacement pump triumphed as one of three winners from among 20 nominees.

Alasdair Robertson, director of product portfolio and marketing for Digital Displacement, Danfoss Power Solutions, accepted the award at a virtual event held February 8 as part of the Agritechnica 2022 digital program.

“We are excited and honored to win this prestigious award,” Robertson said. “The fact that industry development engineers recognised our product as an outstanding innovation makes it even more significant and highlights the advantages Digital Displacement can bring to OEMs in the agriculture sector.”

Delivering hydraulic fluid power with both high efficiency and controllability, the Digital Displacement pump uses solenoid valves to control each cylinder on a shaft-turn-by-shaft-turn basis. The technology offers a fast response rate and reduces energy losses by up to 90% compared with conventional pumps. Additionally, it is possible to bring groups of cylinders out to the endplate for independent control, creating a multi-service pump in a compact package. Original equipment manufacturers can take advantage of up to three separately controllable outputs from a single pump body.

This level of innovation caught the eye of the awards jury, which comprised development engineers from leading agricultural OEMs. Judging criteria included practical significance and benefits to profitability, processes, environment, energy use, workload and safety.

@Danfoss @AGRITECHNICA @DLGeV @NapierPR #Agriculture

Investigating aero-engine technologies!

Monitran supports the Oxford Turbine Research Facility in its investigations into future aero-engine technologies

Monitran is providing specialist engineering services to the Oxford Turbine Research Facility (OTRF), part of the Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford (GB).

Monitran has designed and is supplying high-accuracy signal conditioning units for interfacing with hundreds of thin film heat transfer gauges; which the OTRF has fitted to a full working section of a turbine in order to investigate a variety of turbine blade cooling techniques.

Kam Chana, Commercial & Technical Director of the OTRF, comments: “While we could have outsourced to a traditional CEM we selected Monitran because of their engineering professionalism when it comes to taking on specialist projects and their considerable experience in conditioning small signals.”

Working from schematics provided by the OTRF, and using appropriate CAD software, Monitran designed a double-sided, eight channel analogue circuit board. Each channel is isolated and particular attention was paid to the use of ground planes to screen signal paths into high gain amplifiers. The boards, which are housed in a 19-inch rack system, have been tested at sample rates of 1MHz, as the rationale behind the OTRF’s use of thin film heat transfer gauge sensors is that they have response times in the order of 1μs.

Andy Anthony, Managing Director of Monitran, comments: “This was and continues to be a very interesting project for us and we’re pleased to be supporting the Oxford Turbine Research Facility and the University of Oxford in their investigations into future aero-engine technologies. Also, the service we’re providing gives further testimony of our ability to undertake bespoke projects and deliver professionally engineered ‘turnkey’ solutions.”

To date, Monitran has manufactured 20 signal conditioning units for the OTRF and is on hand to produce more if required; and another reason for the company’s selection by the OTRF was its ability to deliver consistent quality.

Students under water!

RDP Electronics, in conjunction with MTS are providing magnetostrictive displacement transducers for Bath University’s entry in the inaugural European International Submarine Races.

The first time the event has been staged outside the USA, teams are challenged to build and race human-powered submarines which will test the engineering expertise and stamina of enterprising university students from three continents. They will compete at Gosport, (Hants GB), during the week of 25 June 2012 using QinetiQ’s Ocean Basin, the largest freshwater tank in Europe. Here the teams from Canada, France, Oman, UK, and USA who have designed and built their own submarines will then race them flooded, piloted and pedalled by a scuba diver.

The transducers donated by RDP Electronics and MTS to Bath Universtity’s team. utilise a magnetostrictive principle that permits absolute, contact free position measurement combining various magneto-mechanical effects with precise speed measurement of a sound pulse in a wave guide.

Dr William Megill, FIMarEST, Director of the Ocean Technologies Lab in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Bath, who has taken teams to the USA races on three occasions, explained, “The Races combine an engineering design challenge with the technical skill development, and sets them in a unique and exciting sporting competition. There are very real applications for the science and technology employed in these craft as we seek to find ever more effective ways of exploring the waters of the world using autonomous underwater vehicles.”

RDP Electronics offers a range of transducers suitable for submersible applications including DCW and ACW submersible displacement transducers.

Submersible displacement transducers ideal for many monitoring tasks

Monitoring of many large structures may often call for displacement transducers to operate submersed, a need met by RDP Electronics  ACW and DCW ranges.

The DCW series is particularly suited to monitoring large structures such as bridges, underwater structural monitoring and frequently inside pressure vessels such as triasxial testers. The DCW embodies fully sealed amplification electronics within its stainless steel body delivering a 4~20mA analogue output which has the advantage of permitting long cable runs from the structure to a more convenient monitoring location.

Non-magnetic fluids can be allowed to flood the armature tube without affecting the operation of the transducer which is available in unguided, captive or spring return versions. Both the DCW and ACW series use the LVDT principle of no electrical contact across the transducer position sensing element which ensures clean data, infinite resolution and a very long life. The ACW is designed to be used with external signal conditioning.

Submersible displacement transducers ideal for many monitoring tasks

Monitoring of many large structures may often call for displacement transducers to operate submersed, a need met by RDP Electronics  ACW and DCW ranges.

The DCW series is particularly suited to monitoring large structures such as bridges, underwater structural monitoring and frequently inside pressure vessels such as triasxial testers. The DCW embodies fully sealed amplification electronics within its stainless steel body delivering a 4~20mA analogue output which has the advantage of permitting long cable runs from the structure to a more convenient monitoring location. Non-magnetic fluids can be allowed to flood the armature tube without affecting the operation of the transducer which is available in unguided, captive or spring return versions.

Both the DCW and ACW series use the LVDT principle of no electrical contact across the transducer position sensing element which ensures clean data, infinite resolution and a very long life. The ACW is designed to be used with external signal conditioning.

Sensor for autosports

A new low-cost miniature laser displacement sensor that is particularly suited to autosports ride height adjustment and can also provide precision distance measurement in tough industrial environments is available from Variohm EuroSensor. The C-LAS-LT-65-ANA has a 0...+10V analogue output and is an ideal solution for the dynamic set-up of rally cars and some of the less well funded race series such as Formula 3000 where savings of up to 50% can be realised over other manufacturers laser sensors.

The visible red laser light (670 nm) Class 2 laser sensor has a typical working range from 35 mm to 120 mm in a compact IP67 rated polycarbonate housing measuring just 33 mm x 23 mm x 16 mm (L x H x W). With scratch resistant glass for maximum durability and an industrial grade 4-pin metal connector with optional mating cable assembly, the sensor may be supplied with a useful mounting plate which allows simple angular adjustment for completely straightforward installation. The operational temperature range is -20°C to +50°C and performance is guaranteed in ambient light conditions up to 5000 Lux..

The high dynamic range of the C-LAS-LT-65-ANA includes an analogue output that can resolve to a repeatable target of 0.01V under ideal 'white matt' reflective conditions with an update bandwidth rate of 1 kHz which will suit the majority of applications. The fully protected sensor requires a +10VDC to +32VDC supply and includes short circuit and reverse polarity protection.