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Video: Mechanical Engineering Student Develops New Safety Clutch
2023 Author : Hannah Pearcy | [email protected] . Last modified: 2023-06-05 00:21
A safety clutch separates the sides of the drive train when a specified torque is exceeded to avoid overload. Safety clutches are used wherever overloads or blockages could pose a danger to people or machines. However, safety couplings have one disadvantage: they are usually buried deep in the machine. This makes adjustment work time-consuming and expensive
A mechanical engineering student worked on a solution for his master's thesis and developed a new type of safety coupling . The safety clutch for drive machines developed by the student Julian Tschersich switches itself on again - purely mechanically, simply by changing the direction of rotation.
Safety clutch switches on again automatically
The young engineer worked on the idea for a long time and examined the new development in his thesis. Precision was important: The goal is to be able to separate the input and output at lightning speed and thereby stress the components as little as possible, explains Julian Tschersich.
In normal operation, for example, the clutch runs clockwise. Tschersich explains: “In the event of overload peaks, ie when the torque is too high, triggered by a blockage or irregularities in operation, the connection between the input and output side is disconnected. That happens in the millisecond range.”If Julian Tschersich's clutch is then operated in the opposite direction , it automatically switches on again .
This eliminates machine downtimes and time-consuming adjustment work in places that are difficult to access. Prof. Stefan Vöth, who supervised the student's master's thesis, explains: “So far, in the worst case, after every overload, all obstacles have to be dismantled in order to manually prepare the overload clutch again for operation. That costs time and money. With Julian Tschersich's concept, this total effort can be significantly reduced.”
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Prototype should be ready for series production
In addition to his studies, Tschersich works at the Mönninghoff machine factory in Bochum as an engineer in development and design. This also gave rise to the requirement: "The question arose from the constantly increasing demands of our customers for technical innovations." With his mechanism, he made sure that it can be adapted to the existing standard version from Mönninghoff.
In his master's thesis, he shows with many tests that his idea is fully functional. Now he wants to tinker further and improve his first design. "The long-term goal is to turn my prototype into a production-ready product , " says Tschersich. The first prototype was already convincing: the Bochum district association awarded Tschersich with the VDI Prize 2020 for its development.
