By Lisa Ettel | Senior Editor, Design World
(Excerpted from Brakes and Clutches Top Trends in IoT)
Industrial brakes and clutches could become a $1.7 billion market
by 2024, mostly due to investment in industrial automation and the
rise of smart factories. That’s according to Global Industry Analysts
Inc. (GIA). The quickest-growing industries include those related to
material handling, food and beverage, machine tools, and textiles. As
with other technologies, the fastest rate of adoption is in the AsiaPacific
region — with a CAGR of 8.4% for the clutch and brake market
over the next six years.
Matrix spring-applied, electromagneticallyreleased
1EB Series servo motor brakes are
widely used on industrial robot applications.
The brakes maintain torque during static/
holding operations and occasional E-stop
(dynamic stopping) engagement in the case of
power failure.
Whether stock or specific to an application, clutch and brake
specification and integration must be simple. For more on this — and
what else design engineers require from designs today, we spoke with
Gary Haasch, senior product and engineering manager at the Electric
Clutches and Brakes Group of Altra Industrial Motion. Here’s what he
had to say.
Automated guided vehicles (AGVs) and other battery-powered
mobile equipment are increasingly common. Here, we sell an ERS
Brake specifically designed for AGV systems to provide static holding
with limited emergency stop dynamic braking. As with AGVs, the trend
for all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) and utility task vehicles (UTVs) today is
for the brake or clutch manufacturer to provide features that necessitate
less effort for the end user — including more mechanical control with
less physical effort. On a related note — that of automated warehousing
— we’re selling more C-Face-mounted clutch brakes than in the past.
These are for controlling ac-motor-powered conveyors.
In contrast, Cartesian robots require servomotor brakes — with
the ability to engage in static holding … and with functional e-stop
dynamic braking of servomotors for each axis of a robot.
Warner Electric ERS Series brakes are springset
and electrically-released to provide holding as
well as occasional dynamic stopping functions
in emergency situations.
On the topic of IoT — the fact is that the IoT is here … it’s no
longer the future. So the sky’s the limit on what remote actuation (and
dashboard monitoring) can work on the many devices in our everyday
lives. We see IoT influencing the brake and clutch industry so we’re
starting to investigate where IoT might be helpful as a value-added
feature. Direct consumer products have the most appeal, but the market
isn’t financially ready to support IoT functionality. That said, as the
cost for technologies to support IoT functionality comes down, we
think we’ll see more controllability and feedback through smartphone
technology.
For now, our focus is to educate end users on the value of realtime
access to system information — including functional alerts (to
prompt adjustments) or predictive maintenance of clutches and brakes.
On the topic of Industrial IoT (IIoT), increasingly networked
manufacturing has spurred us to begin several programs for operators
wanting remote access and monitoring. For example, one potential IIoT
clutch application is for the activation (and performance and condition
monitoring) of a clutch assembly in an oil-well pump jack.
Warner Electric engineers developed a
modified CMS (Commercial Mag Stop) clutch
to meet a pump jack OEMs function and
performance requirements. The clutch assembly
mounts directly to the engine shaft and features
a double-groove pulley to accommodate twin
V-belts that drive the pump shaft.
Right now a manufacturer uses our clutch in this application to
let an engine restart without load after maintenance. Our clutch also
disengages the engine if the oil level of a well falls below a suction tube
(to let the oil level recover). More specifically, this is a Warner Electric
Mag Stop clutch (which is bearing mounted and has steel friction
plates); a pulley accommodates twin V-belts that drive the pump shaft.
The modified clutch is a variation of standard CMS clutches (which
come rated to 200 or 250 ft-lb). Before the clutch was added to this
design, the engine kept running (which accelerated wear) or shut down
(necessitating restart).
Besides IoT, we see other trends in the design and use of brake
and clutch technology.
In applications where safety and e-stopping is networked,
power-off brakes are increasingly common, as these brakes engage
immediately when the power source is disabled.
On the topic of software to improve designs — we use
electromechanical simulation software on clutch and brake designs to
get maximum torque performance. The software simulates lines of flux
from a wound coil to predict the attractive force that yields the torque
capacity of the clutch or brake. This in turn lets us validate designs
much faster than what’s possible with traditional design approaches —
which are usually through a build-test-redesign product development
cycle.
In terms of new brake offerings over the last year, we’ve
introduced more power-off brakes for both static holding and dynamic
e-stop braking of servomotor-driven applications and similar brakes for
electric vehicles.