CASE STUDIES
Torsional Vibration Measurements on Reciprocating Compressor
THE CLIENTStructural Dynalysis was founded in 2002 and specializes in structural dynamics, vibration testing & analysis, signal processing and driveline dynamics. In addition to the testing services provided, Structural Dynalysis provides thorough torsional...
Harbor Towing Optimization
BACKGROUND With increased emissions regulations and rising fuel costs, vessel owners are constantly looking for ways to reduce fuel consumption of their fleet and tugboats are no exception. In a typical tug operation, there are 2 basic modes of operation: in-transit...
Pump Efficiency Testing With Torque Telemetry
THE CLIENTIntegrity Pump & Motor specializes in the design, manufacturing, and testing of a wide variety of pumps used across numerous industries. Integrity-built pumps have been used at golf courses, mines, agriculture, municipalities, and countless other...
High/Low Torque Alarm on Vertical Roll Mill in Cement Plant
THE CLIENTFounded in 1996, Torkflex has established itself as a leading provider of products and engineering services in mechanical drives. Headquartered in Ribeirão Preto city, São Paulo,, Brazil Torkflex has serviced over 100 customers in the South America region in...
Engine Horsepower Verification of Steam-Powered Vessel
THE CLIENTThe S.S. Badger is a passenger and vehicle ferry that has been in service since 1953. Currently, she shuttles across Lake Michigan between Manitowoc, Wisconsin and Ludington, Michigan. What makes her unique is this: she is the very last coal-burning...
Torsional Vibration Analysis on Oil Refinery Coupling
THE CLIENTEngineering Dynamics Incorporated (EDI) is an independent engineering firm offering consulting services to a large range of industries. The corporation was established in 1982 by a core group of six engineers, and today has offices in both San Antonio and...
Identifying Hull Fouling Through Shaft Horsepower Measurements
THE CLIENTFounded in 1982, MACSEA has acquired decades of experience in providing ship performance monitoring solutions to both Naval and commercial shipowners. MACSEA was the first company to unleash the power of neural network-based software agents for real-time...
Axial Thrust Measurement in Vertical Turbine Pump
Engineering Dynamics Incorporated (EDI) was requested to help perform an axial load test on a vertical water pump. Since commissioning, the pump experienced accelerated bearing and shaft wear. There was concern that problems might be due to up-thrust resulting in a...
Balancing Double-Leaf Bascule Bridge with Torque Telemetry
The Park Street Bridge in Alameda County, California is a four-lane double-leaf bascule (draw) bridge spanning 372 feet across the Oakland Tidal Canal between the Cities of Alameda and Oakland. When rework construction modified the weight of the original lift spans...
Verifying Vertical Lift Bridge Balance With Torque Meters
Houghton Lift Bridge, Houghton, MI – Mechanical rework and painting of the double deck, vertical lift bridge at Houghton, MI had potentially changed the weight of the movable span. Lunda Construction, the primary contractor, was required by the Michigan D.O.T. to...
Water Treatment Column Pump Start-Up Torque Measurement
A civil engineering company in Chicago was hired to determine the start-up torque for a column pump at a water treatment plant for the City. The City desired to upgrade the pump drive system by employing reduced voltage starters to minimize in-rush current. Some of...
Water Treatment Plant Flight Gearbox Torque Measurement
A large urban city water treatment facility uses large power driven chain-linked scrapers called “flights” to extract impurities (i.e. mud and silt) from each cistern as part of the water purification process. The drive system, specifically the gear sets, would...
Torque Sensors Evaluate Wear on Sugar Cane Rolls
WEAR & GRIP LOSS EVALUATION OF HIGH CHROMIUM WELDING DEPOSITS APPLIED ON SUGAR CANE ROLLS ABSTRACT Wear on sugar cane rolls is an expensive maintenance problem for the sugar cane industry. Wear produces loss of sucrose extraction and loss of grip of the roll on...
Torque Measurement At Sugar Cane Processing Plant
A Brazilian gearbox manufacturer had a mystery to solve in the giant drive system of a Brazilian sugar cane processing mill. The coupling at the gearbox is a special “overload coupling” and it broke repeatedly during the routine sugar mill process. The special...
Troubleshooting Methane Booster Elastomeric Coupling Failures
Ariel Corporation was working on an issue with Rotor Bearing Technology & Software, Inc. (RBTS) for a company in Australia. Since its start up, the customer had experienced multiple elastomeric element failures in the drive coupling on their large coal bed methane...
Determining Stresses on Life-Limited Components
A TorqueTrak 10K user in a Gulf Coast refinery was having issues with their compressor train. The compressor train uses a synchronous motor drive in a hard start application. In that application, torque pulses occur from 120 Hz to 0 Hz during the transient start-up....
Wind Turbine Design Validation
Torque is an important variable to the designers and manufacturers of wind turbine technology. Torque data is especially critical in the evaluation of wind turbine components such as bearings, gears, and braking systems. By providing the true mechanical work being...
Troubleshooting Coupling Failures at Crude Oil Pumping Station
At a crude oil pumping station (consisting of 10 units with 4500 HP/ unit), a problem arose where the elastomeric couplings melted during regular operations as seen in this photo. Suspecting torsional vibration as the cause of failure, Mr. Gilberto Rios of DYNA...
Optimizing Wind Turbine Design
Kenetech Wind Power, Palm Springs, CA - To further optimize the design of their large scale wind turbines, Kenetech design engineers wanted actual bending stress measurements on the blade shank where it attaches to the rotary hub. But how could the signals from the...
Water Turbine Performance Testing
When Russell Westbrook and Mete Sireli of Clean Current Power Systems needed to do some turbine performance testing, they chose Binsfeld's TorqueTrak products to help them look for answers. Clean Current ran their proprietary "generator in open circuit" in a tank full...
Testing Brakes
Material handling company Magnetek needed a more efficient method of testing the torque produced by their industrial brakes. Originally they used torque wrenches to measure the torque that the brake produced. Magnetek looked to Binsfeld Engineering because they had...
Monitoring Cooling Conveyor Torque
Engineers at a chocolate factory in Chicago, Illinois had an expensive problem with one of their cooling conveyors. Trays loaded with hot confections were moved through a series of air cooling tunnels by the conveyor. Each tunnel section had an independent length of...
Troubleshooting Overloads at Hot Strip Mill
Bethlehem Steel, Sparrows Point, MD - Plant engineers had deduced that sporadic torque overloads on a rolling stand in the hot strip mill were causing breakdowns of the expensive drive system. What the engineers didn't know was why. Was it a function of the width or...
Increasing Process Throughput Of Paper Machine
International Paper Company - Plant personnel were not able to run the year-old paper machine at full speed. Either the two drive motors were not producing the rated horsepower or the process required more horsepower than the drives could produce. Motor current...
Diagnosing Rolling Mill Performance Problem
IPSCO Steel, Axis, Alabama - A rolling stand at IPSCO Steel consistently under-performed - it was unable to reduce six-inch thick slabs by the 1.25 inches desired. Engineers suspected the drive motors might be the cause. Before making this claim to the motor...
Measuring Actual Torque on Automotive Stamping Press
Nissan Motors, Smyrna, TN - Repetitive breakdowns of the transfer drive (moves parts through) on a stamping press were restricting production. The press manufacturer said the machine was designed for 18 strokes per minute but running it faster than 10 spm caused drive...
Increasing Tilling Efficiency of Tractor
Abstract Recent rises in fuel costs have started to impact the bottom line for farm managers, making them consider possible methods to achieve energy savings. Conventional subsoiling can be performed deeper than necessary to alleviate compaction layers. However,...
Driveshaft Failures on Hybrid Electric Vehicle
Mechanical engineering students working as part of the Michigan Technological University’s Challenge X Team were plagued by broken half shafts in the electric drivetrain of their Chevrolet Equinox hybrid vehicle. A resonant torque event was causing the failures that...
Torque Monitoring System Used in SAE Baja Buggy Development
SAE Baja is a challenging collegiate racing series hosted by the Society of Automotive Engineers where student teams design, build and compete off-road vehicles. Except for tires, rims, shocks and the engine, the teams must either customize or design and manufacture...
Torsional Vibration on a Tanker Shaft
Hagen Andersen, DNV (USA) Inc., uses the TorqueTrak 10K telemetry instrument from Binsfeld Engineering to perform true mechanical Torque & Power measurements on marine propeller shafts. Shown below is a recent case study. DNV was contracted by a United States ship...
Damaging Torsional Vibration Identified and Eliminated
CENTA Transmissions Far East Pte. Ltd. used the TorqueTrak 10K telemetry instruments from Binsfeld Engineering to diagnose and solve a problem aboard a twin-propeller ship, where the couplings on both shafts repeatedly suffered damage after only a couple hours of sea...
Setting Engine Maximum Power Output
When power is money, using Binsfeld TorqueTrak TT10K torque meters can assist engine manufacturers to set maximum power output. A tug barge owner, operating in Alaska, had to re-fit his tug propulsion system in order to comply with environmental regulation. In his...
Marine Propulsion System Upgrade Trials
LamaLo Technology Inc. (LLT) commonly conducts marine propulsion shafting vibration and powering measurements in support of new construction, propulsion upgrades, and troubleshooting. Binsfeld TorqueTrak 10K telemetry systems are used to measure the shaft torque....
‘Ghost’ Torque Captured Onboard Navy Ship
Rolls-Royce Marine NA in Old Saybrook, Connecticut was asked by the US Navy to investigate a report of rudder post binding on one of their ships. Although none of the affected equipment was manufactured by Rolls-Royce, the Navy sought the Marine Engineering Services...
Ship Propulsion System: Navy Relies on Telemetry for Sea Trials
Transfield Defence Systems, Melbourne, Australia - Catastrophic failure of the port drive shaft on the Australian naval frigate, HMAS Anzac, led to expensive dry-dock repairs. Potential variations in the newly installed drive system could invalidate computer...
Ship Power Plant Protected by High Torque Alarm
A ship management company that specializes in the transport of pleasure yachts had developed a new, efficient ship design. One of the features of the vessel was that the power plant was closely matched to the two 5,100 kW electric motors driving the propellers....
Troubleshooting Overland Conveyor VFD
The following application story is taken from the “THE VALUE OF FIELD MEASUREMENTS ON OVERLAND CONVEYORS” by David J. Kruse and Ryan Lemmon of Advanced Conveyor Technologies (AC-Tek). The TorqueTrak 10K temporary torque measurement system was used to provide the...