Creating machinery that can withstand the harsh conditions of space is a significant engineering challenge. Atlas Copco, a leader in industrial solutions, has risen to this challenge by developing air motors that are robust, reliable, and fully compliant with the stringent requirements of space missions. This article explores how Atlas Copco achieves this feat, leveraging their standard air motors and the expertise of their R&D team.
Your reputation is built into every machine. Don’t let a motor break it.
If you design machines, your main goal is to make sure they work well and don’t break down. This job gets much harder when the machine has to operate in a difficult environment.
Today, many people want “smarter” machines that can provide data about their performance. This creates a problem: the electronics that makes machines smart are often fragile. They can easily fail in the tough conditions of a factory. This article dives into this problem and offers a more simple, reliable solution.
The hostile environment challenge: why standard “smart” solution fail
Putting smart electronics into machines for tough industrial settings is a big risk. Electronic parts are sensitive, and protecting them is both expensive and complicated.
- Places with explosion risk: In some factories a single spark from an electric motor could cause a fire or explosion. The logical solution could be to put the motor inside a heavy, expenive metal box. But these boxes are bulky, and every wire going into them creates a potential safety hazzard.
- Places that need constant cleaning: In the food or medicine industries, machines are washed dwon with powerful jets and cleaning chemicals. Water getting into an electric motor or its controls will destroy them, causing the machine to fail.
- Places with chemicals in the air: In chemical plants, or environments near the ocena, chemicals or salt in tehe air can wear ot a motor's parts. This damage can cause unexpected breakdowns, ehich stop production and cost a lot of money.
For a machine designer, these issues can cause delays and drive-up costs.
Most importantly, they make the fianal machine less relaible.
Why we need smart machines and the limits of electrification
Companies need smart machines because they provide useful information. Knowing exactly how a machine is running helps to check that the product quality is consistent, save energy, and spot problems before they break down.
But using regular electric motors to get this information in tough places leads to problems:
- Too complicated: You have to use a fragile electric motor and protect it with bulky cases and seals. This adds many extra parts, and more parts mean more things can go wrong.
- Too expensive: Special waterproof or explosion-proof electric motors and their control systems cost a lot of money. This makes the project more expensive from the start.
- Too hard to install: Putting these systems together is not easy. You have to get parts from different suppliers
The main problem is clear: you are using a technology that isn’t built for the job. This is not a safe choice.
A simple better solution: Air Motors
Air motors offer a much better way. They run on compressed air, not electricity, which makes them perfect for tough job. They have always been the first choice for difficult environments because they are safe in explosive areas, work perfectly in wet conditions, and won’t break if they overloaded.
In the past, the only downside was that you couldn’t get performance data from them. Now, that has changed. You can get precise speed information directly from the air motor. This means you get all the benefits of a tough, reliable motor, plus the advantages of a smart machine, without adding complicated boxes or wiring.
Atlas Copco offers two air motor solutions to start creating smart pneumatic machines:
The PZB piston motor with its integrated sensor-ready design
The LZL vane motor which is easily transformed thanks to a simple accessory
For new designs, this is a huge advantage because it simplifies the design process and makes integration much faster, as you don’t need to add special components. Upgrading an existing machine is also incredibly easy; the change is almost invisible for an LZL motor and completely invisible for a PZB motor, with no redesign required. Importantly, the motors do not lose their safety certification for explosive areas (ATEX), as long as the speed sensor you install is also ATEX certified.
“Atlas Copco, we have a dedicated R&D team for developing customized air motor solutions to drive your application success!”
Damien Feller Global Product Manager
Ready to make our next project the “safe bet”? Contact us to discuss your application.
Building machines is about making smart, safe choices. Trying to protect fragile electronics in a tough environment is a risky and expensive strategy. It makes more sense to use a motor that is naturally built for the job.
With Atlas Copco's new air motor solutions, you don’t have to choose between a reliable machine and a smart one. For your next project, you can have both. It is the safe choice that also delivers smart performance.