January 2021

TECHNOLOGY n THE ENGINEERING PLASTICS specialist igus claims to be the first company that can integrate sensors into plastics components to help predict the need for maintenance and avoid downtime. The company’s engineers have combined additive manufacturing and Industry 4.0 technologies into a single production step that allows sensors to be incorporated into components such as polymer bearings using multi-material 3D printing techniques. “Our intelligent 3D printed bearing marks a real breakthrough, meaning maintenance needs can be predicted and overloads avoided,” says igus’ UK managing director, Matthew Aldridge. “Long before any failure, the intelligent 3D printed component signals that a replacement will soon be required. It can also detect an imminent overload and prevent any further damage to the bearing and system.” igus has been producing “smart”wear- resistant parts for energy chains, plain bearings and linear guides since 2016. However, before this latest development, the sensing capabilities has to be added to items such as plain bearings in a second step. This proved complex and costly. Using the new process, wear-resistant parts with built-in sensing capabilities can be produced in as little as five days, without needing a second step. The sensing layer is applied to parts of the component that will be subjected to loads using an electrically conductive material that bonds well with the tribo-filament materials. Currently, there are two ways of using the technology: n If the conductive material is located between layers prone to wear, it can warn against overloading. If the load changes, the electrical resistance also changes. This allows a machine to be stopped before further damage occurs. n If a conductive track is embedded into a sliding surface, its wear can be measured via the change in resistance. This can be used to predict the need for maintenance, again avoiding downtime. The 3D-printed sensors can be seen at an online “virtual trade show” that igus has launched: https://exhibition.igus.co.uk IT INFRASTRUCTURE SOFTWARE & SERVICES www.rittal.co.uk Pioneering process ‘prints’ sensors into plastic parts Bosch Rexroth’s ctrlX Safety platformpromises high levels of safety thanks to its fast reaction times, and efficient engineering through graphical programming p ODVA has added user-level authentication to CIP Security, the cybersecurity network extension for EtherNet/IP. Previous CIP Security specifications included key security properties such as a broad trust domain across groups of devices, data confidentiality, and device authentication, identity and integrity. With the new update, CIP Security now offers stronger device-level security with a narrow trust domain by user and role, an improved device identity including the user, and fixed user authentication. www.odva.org p The OPC Foundation says that its Field Level Communications Initiative has achieved a significant milestone by completing an initial release candidate focusing on Controller-to- Controller (C2C) communications. This will be used to build prototypes and create specifications for testing an OPC UA certification tool. It also lays the foundation for enhancements to cover Controller- to-Device (C2D) and Device-to-Device (D2D) uses in the next step. The Foundation has published a technical paper explaining the basic concepts of extending OPC UA to the field level. www.opcfoundation.org p The edge computing specialist Stratus Technologies has announced a“solution in a box” control architecture for fast, easy deployment at edge locations requiring 2,000 I/Os or fewer. It runs Rockwell Automation ’s PlantPAx 5.0 software on Stratus ztC Edge, allowing rapid deployment by users on one panel-mounted edge computing device. It is said to offer a flexible way of allowing systems integrators and others to accelerate and scale multisite deployments at edge locations, and to implement Industry 4.0 capabilities across a range of environments that were not previously possible. www.stratus.com p The German technology group Mahle has invested €3m to set up a testbench for electric and hybrid vehicle drivetrains. The facility includes load machines with permanent magnet synchronous motors capable of handling 350kWof power and 8.4kNmof peak torque. The testbench will be used for development work, dynamics simulations, efficiency measurements and torque vectoring, among other functions.