Annual Buyers Guide

A wireless torque sensor provided an effective solution to an interesting engineering challenge when Advanced Design Innovations (ADI), a specialist supplier of custom manufacturing and testing equipment, was asked by Bristan, manufacturers of bathroom taps and showers, to develop a new durability test rig to help optimise product performance. CASE STUDY I n order to ensure that Bristan’s products always meet its high standards, the company regularly subjects samples to an exhaustive testing regime, an important part of which is durability testing for taps, thermostatic radiator valves (TRVs) and the rotary controls on its show units. Until recently, the company carried out these tests by continuously operating the taps and controls using a pneumatically operated test rig with fixed stop positions for the rotary motion. This arrangement was not entirely satisfactory, however, as it made little allowance for any increase in operating torque that occurred during testing and it could not accommodate the effects of wear in, for example, the rubber washers used in taps. For help with devising a better method of testing, Bristan approached ADI, a company that it knew had wide experience in developing specialist test equipment. After carefully analysing the application requirements, ADI proposed a completely new test rig, which would be driven by servomotors rather than pneumatic cylinders, as this would allow much arrangement was preferred as it would not only compensate automatically for wear in the component under test, but would also more accurately reflect the real life operation of the component, since users typically stop tightening a tap or rotating a control when a certain level Process, Controls & Plant Focus on: Sensors & Measurement more accurate and consistent control to be achieved. In addition, instead of using fixed stops for the rotary motion, the new test rig would be arranged to stop when the torque in the drive system reached a preset value. This Optimising product performance 28 | Plant & Works Engineering www.pwemag.co.uk Annual Buyers’Guide 2020 TorqSense provides a non-contact method for measuring power in a rotating shaft.