Additive Manufacturing of Casing for Vibration Sensor
Speaker: Morten Bak, CTO, Mechatronics Innovation Lab
For the past five years or so the offshore and maritime industries have been forced to cut cost throughout the entire supply chain. The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the pressure on these industries and emphasised the need for remote and digital services. Condition monitoring systems can lower the maintenance cost on ships and offshore installations by switching from a calendar-based maintenance strategy to a predictive one, where service and maintenance is performed based on machine condition and not at fixed intervals. In addition, equipment is monitored remotely reducing the logistic and environmental footprint of maintenance. Machine Prognostics develops and provides such condition monitoring, and as supplier of said industries, they too are under pressure to deliver cost effective solutions. Their system, Foresight, is based on vibration measurements performed by a compact vibration sensor with on board processing. To withstand the tough environment at sea the sensor is enclosed in casing made super-duplex stainless steel with a high corrosion resistance. The sensor casing manufactured by means of machining, however, due to the poor machine ability of super-duplex the manufacturing cost is relatively high. Mechatronics Innovation Lab has developed an additive manufacturing approach based on selective laser melting (SLM) and a minimum of required post processing which reduces the manufacturing cost by approximately 30% and also reducing lead time significantly.