In industrial automation and robotics, guaranteeing unaltered cable performance during machinery operation is fundamental. A critical issue for this type of use is mechanical stress from bending, torsion simultaneously.
Instruments used for these tests:
Cable chains
Nowadays, cable chains with high dynamic performance, increasingly smaller bending radius and higher speed and acceleration are a growing demand for industrial automatic storage systems and machine tools.
Tests spanning from a minimum bending radius of 15 mm to a maximum of 250 mm can be carried out.The test chains are driven by brushless servo motors.
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Chain length 17 m – Top speed 200 m/min – Maximum acceleration 6 m/s² |
Chain 1, 2, 3:
Top speed: 200 m/min
Maximum acceleration: 6 m/s²
Bending radius: from 15 to 250 mm
Maximum length: 16.5 m
Chains 5-8 with linear motor:
Top speed: 300 m/min
Acceleration: 30m/s²
Bending radius: from 50 to 150
Maximum length: 7 m.
The chains are connected by a data acquisition system, developed in LabVIEW® environment, for acquiring the electric resistance of cables and monitoring trends with regards to the number of cycles. This system provides a database for easily retrieving and accessing data. The system is also visible via Intranet and Internet.
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Data acquisition system with up to 64 channels |
Robot simulators
TECNIKABEL in close collaboration with leading robot manufacturers has developed mechanical simulators which reproduce the axes of a wrist robot to test the technical lifespan of a cable after millions of cycles.
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Robot wrist simulator - Speed 20 rad/s – Acceleration 15 rad/s² |
Torsion simulators
These devices are designed by TECNIKABEL engineers to test several cables at the same time: rotation angle, twisting length, bending radius, speed and acceleration, combination of different bending and twisting movements. The two devices can test cables with different diameters.
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Twisting simulator – Angular speed 20 rad/s – Acceleration 30 rad/s² |
