Automation Parts

Scottish Water has replaced the ageing DC pump drive motors of three large sludge pumps at one of its wastewater facilities with matched W21 high-efficiency AC motors and CFW-09 drives from WEG. The DC motors were employed on Whitehead and Poole piston ram pumps that are used to transfer sludge from the Laighpark wastewater treatment site, which serves around 150,000 people in the Paisley area of Glasgow, to Shieldhall wastewater treatment plant. They had been installed for some years, providing the high torque at start-up necessary for the pumping operation, and the facility for variable speed control of the pumps via a simple potentiometer. Because the capacity for storing sludge at Laighpark is limited, transfers to Shieldhall are made daily. This places a premium on the reliability of the two front-line motors - the third is a duty stand-by - which are generally called upon to operate for six hours a day. This was not a problem until recently, when the age of the motors starting...

Aerco has brought out the Safetinex Range Of Safety Light Curtains From Contrinex, the modular design of which allows fully tested systems to be delivered on a short time scale. Contrinex safety light curtains correspond to Safety Category 4 (EN/ISO 13849-1) and Type 4 (EN/IEC 61496 -1 and -2) and are designed to be used wherever risks cannot be eliminated through machine design. The light curtain will immediately stop the machine if it detects a person or any part of the body entering a danger zone. Safetinex light curtains consist of a rugged sender and a receiver unit that demarcate the protection zone around the machine. The range comprises models with resolutions of 14mm for finger protection and 30mm for hand protection, with a maximum protective field width of 3.5 and 12m respectively. The maximum protective height is either 1685mm (14mm resolution) or 1822mm (30mm resolution). The Safetinex's signal-processing method ensures fast response times and maximum safety for m...

WEG has announced that its HV electric motors, inverters and generators have been utilised in the P-53 floating platform unit (FPU) deployed by Petrobras off the coast of Brazil. The company said the FPU relies on WEG's products for its continuous reliable operation in the worst of environmental conditions. The platform uses WEG medium- and high-voltage motors to drive water-injection pumps to pump water into the oil well; this in order to maintain high levels of extraction and avoid internal low-pressure conditions. WEG motors also drive the pumps used for oil production outflow from the platform, and those responsible for cooling systems on the platform. The compression modules used on P-53 are supplied by DRVA, a consortium of Dresser-Rand and Vetco Aibel. These units also depend on three WEG 13,500kW, four-pole, 6600V, synchronous motors driven by frequency inverters. The motors and inverters were supplied as integrated systems by WEG to Dresser-Rand in the US, and to the oi...