Infrared Reflective Interrupter for Sealing Function Detection

摘要

For reliable sealing of shaft feed-through, several seals like Simmerrings, O-Rings, and others are used. Even after 10,000 operating hours of reliable sealing, a replacement of the seal becomes necessary when the wear exceeds a certain value. This precautionary measure ensures a trouble-free working of the machine and avoids cost-intensive down time or failures. The Simmerring for example is one of the most-stressed machine elements. Until now, it was one of the wear elements that were undetectable in conventional machine monitoring systems. In case of a planed preventive maintenance, Simmerrings often are replaced, even if their function is not lost at all. In many applications, the damage of the whole system caused by leakage is huge. For that reason, the need of early failure detection or even detection prior to failure of the sealing is very high. A well-defined maintenance programme can reduce maintenance costs by up to 40% and increase reliability of the plant and equipment against failure. Condition Monitoring is the most current strategy on the market following this approach. Simmerrings with integrated sealing function detection is Freudenberg's innovative contribution.