drinkworld Technology + Marketing 3/2022

Cover Story

Cover Story High-Efficiency Drives Be it for transporting meat, vegetables, confectionery, bakery products or beverage bottles: Conveyor technology is an essential factor in the food industry. The specialist NORD DRIVESYSTEMS offers drive technology that raises the systems’ energy efficiency to a whole new level. Cleaning, inspecting, filling, sealing, labelling: These are some of the stations the bottles in the beverage industry go through on the conveyor belts. A not insignificant part of the industry’s energy costs are due to the effort of electric drives powering the conveyor belts, among other things. Experts consider that electronic drives make up 70 percent of the total energy effort across all industries. This is not only a significant cost factor – it also provides a huge optimization and savings potential. NORD DRIVESYSTEMS, one of the world market leaders for electronic drive components, offers an extensive portfolio of electronic motors, gear units and electronic drive technologies, adapted to the challenges of the individual industries and optimized in regard to energy efficiency. “With thousands of drives installed in the food and beverage industry, we have a comprehensive industry expertise”, Jörg Niermann, Marketing Manager at NORD emphasized. Special for the food industry NORD has optimized the patented gear unit/motor concept DuoDrive, where a highly efficient IE5+ synchronous motor is in a single-stage helical gear unit, for the food industry’s specific requirements. Motor and gear unit into one housing? “Yes, this offers several advantages”, said Niermann. First, a unit with an outstanding energy efficiency is installed with the IE5+ synchronous motor which tops the highest defined efficiency class IE5. “That is why we have + in the name“, according to Niermann. IE5+ synchronous motors have a high power density. Furthermore, the motor’s quiet running ensures minimum noise emissions – a clear advantage in large bottling halls. NORD DRIVESYSTEMS offers highly efficient drive system for conveyor belts in the beverage industry Photo: NORD DRIVESYSTEMS The gear unit/motor concept DuoDrive from NORD has an energy-efficient IE5+ synchronous motor integrated into a single-stage helical gear unit Photo: NORD DRIVESYSTEMS As a system the DuoDrive concept is achieving an even higher energy efficiency then just an IE5+ motor that is installed with a gear unit from the NORD modular system, and with up to 92 percent it achieves one of the highest efficiencies on the market in this power class. “The fewer interfaces, the higher the system efficiency”, Jörg Niermann explained. Integration into the gear unit housing also reduces the installation space and makes several wear-prone parts obsolete, reducing the maintenance effort at the same time. Constant torque over a wide speed range Many systems do not continuously run under full load. For this, DuoDrive presents an additional advantage. "It provides a constant motor torque and a very constant efficiency over a wide speed range“, said Niermann. “Specifically this means that the gear motor can be used efficiently even with partial load individual overload peaks and thus replaces several different dimensioned drive versions.“ This reduces the variety of drive versions across the whole system and thus 6

Cover Story minimizes administrative costs. It also enables leaner manufacturing, logistics, storage and service processes. DuoDrive can be cleaned easily, reducing costs and increasing system availability. Furthermore, it is corrosionresistant (e.g. using the NORD nsd tupH surface treatment) and wash-down capable, making it ideally suited for use in hygiene-sensitive areas like the food industry. Also with robust surface treatment The version with the particularly robust nsd tupH surface treatment is optionally available. It provides an alternative to stainless steel: It has a similar corrosion resistance but is considerably more economical. The nsd tupH is a treatment for the surfaces of aluminum components and not a coating, so nothing can detach or flake off as might be the case with painting. Having been treated with the nsd tupH surface treatment the DuoDrive geared motor is protected against corrosion, aggressive detergents, acids, alkalis and even the use of high-pressure cleaners. It is highly water-repellent and extremely easy to clean. Aluminum components with nsd tupH have a lower weight than stainless steel components and dissipate heat considerably more effectively. This lowers the operating temperatures in gear unit components. This in turn has an advantageous effect on the service life of the gear units. Powers up to 3 kW The patented DuoDrive geared motor from NORD DRIVESYSTEMS is available for powers of up to 3 kW with a continuous torque of up to 250 Nm and speeds of up to 1,000 min-1, and covers gear unit speed ratios of i=3 to i=18. Like all products from all components the NORD portfolio, DuoDrive is also compatible with all components for NORD drive electronics and can be equipped with the common hollow shaft dimensions (20 to 40 mm), flange versions (B5 and B14), or a torque arm. The market-compatible interfacing dimensions facilitate the replacement and the integration into existing plant designs. Furthermore, there is simple plug-and-play commissioning. All in all, the advantages lead to a significant reduction of the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) when compared to conventional drives. “Overall, our drive solutions with DuoDrive are offering an economically attractive and highly efficient alternative for applications in the beverage industry and the food industry.” Niermann explained. NORD is presenting at trade fairs, for example this year at the drinktec in Munich, a trade fair model that makes the specific advantages especially apparent. In a simple system design, where bottles are conveyed in two circles, the power consumption of two drive configurations will be compared: one, of a customary IE3 asynchronous motor with bevel gear unit and decentralised frequency inverter and the other of a DuoDrive (IE5+ synchronous motor and single-stage helical gear unit) with a NORDAC PRO SK 500E control cabinet frequency inverter. Result: The DuoDrive consumes up to 50 percent less energy. “This makes the DuoDrive a highly attractive solution for companies wishing to lower their energy consumption“, Jörg Niermann emphasized. “In times of rising energy costs this is becomes more and more relevant, of course.” NORD has compared the energy consumption of various drive versions and established that DuoDrive saves up to 50 % in energy. Photo: NORD DRIVESYSTEMS drinkworld Technology + Marketing · September 2022 7