05.08.2021 – 11:39
Darmstadt University of Technology
Intelligently stored
HCP Sense turns rolling bearings into smart drive components
Darmstadt, August 5, 2021. Wind turbines, combine harvesters, kitchen appliances or machine tools: they all need a roller bearing. It ensures that a rotating system works smoothly. The start-up HCP Sense is making the warehouse fit for digital production. Spin-off from the TU Darmstadt and supported by the innovation and start-up center HIGHEST, the team is currently testing prototypes with potential customers from the industry that are to be used in series production.
The principle of rolling bearings was already familiar to the Celts and ancient Romans. Movable “rolling elements” – usually balls or cylinders – are attached between two rings. The inner ring ensures that a wheel, for example, is fixed in the right place on the axle. The outer ring sets the wheel in motion, the rolling elements turn inside with it and act as a buffer between the two surfaces. This prevents friction and minimizes the loss of effectiveness and the associated wear and tear. “Everything that rotates must be stored correctly,” says Tobias Schirra, co-founder of HCP Sense, in a nutshell. The areas of application for the intelligent bearings that Schirra and his co-founders Georg Martin, Ansgar Thilmann and Sarah Wicker want to bring to market are correspondingly broad.
Like human joints, bearings are exposed to considerable stress. All forces that act in a machine have an impact on this component. For example, when a food processor is kneading dough, stronger forces act on the bearing than when stirring a sauce. The technology that led to the founding of HCP Sense addresses these forces. “With our high-quality data, we know everything that arrives in the warehouse,” says Schirra. Measured directly at the source in the running process and converted into information with the help of algorithms, this data not only enables conclusions to be drawn about the condition of the bearings and lubricant, but also about the entire process. This offers new potential for predictive maintenance, monitoring and optimization of gearboxes and drives.
As with other components that are digitally managed, sensors can be used to continuously measure the forces on the bearing. The problem: The installation of a corresponding sensor system in the warehouse is not only complex, but also increases the installation space. Integrated sensors are therefore only used for a few special applications: “Most companies are not interested in it, as the effort exceeds the added value,” explains Thilmann, who is responsible for organizational and commercial issues in the founding team. The patented new measuring method, which the two mechanical engineers Schirra and Martin developed in the product development and machine elements (PMD) department at TU Darmstadt, is now set to change that.
“With our sensor bearing, we make use of the electrical properties of the rolling bearing itself,” explains electrical engineer Wicker. The new sensor system measures the alternating current resistance that arises in the rolling bearing as a result of the interaction of lubricant and rolling element and changes depending on the load. A software evaluates this measurement data, compares it with the operating conditions of the bearing, for example the temperature, load, geometry or speed, and documents the results of the measurements for the operator of the respective machine.
The sensor bearing from HCP Sense does not require any additional installation space or complicated structural changes. It is suitable for new machines as well as for retrofitting existing systems. On the basis of the load data that it provides, companies can improve their maintenance planning, reduce machine downtimes caused by the failure of rolling bearings, optimize the production process and make it more economical or, in the future, develop new digital business models – a product and business idea that not only the consultants and consultants from HIGHEST, but also the industry. In the meantime, a prototype has been created, which the start-up presented at the Hannover Messe 2021, among other places.
Although it is still in the middle of the founding process, the future HCP Sense GmbH is already running two development projects with partners who want to test the prototype in a real production environment. The founding team is currently financing itself and its start-up from the funds of the EXIST research transfer. When this funding expires in September 2022, the four of them want to have achieved a lot. On the agenda are the search for further pilot partners and for investors who are enthusiastic about the business idea, the entry into series production and last but not least “to achieve the highest possible turnover”. The engineers who originally started out in basic research have certainly not regretted their entry into business life. “At the beginning you stand in front of a huge mountain,” says Ansgar Thilmann. “But then you dismantle it step by step.” For those who want to start a business after them, he recommends: “Just give it full throttle and do it.”
This is how the TU start-up center HIGHEST helps this start-up:
2017: Support with invention reports and patent applications
Since 2017: Support within the framework of regular feedback rounds and placement of coaches from the HIGHEST network
2018: Internationalization of the patent
2019: Funding by the Pioneer Fund of the TU Darmstadt as an ACTIVATOR project
03/2021 to 08/2022: EXIST research transfer
About the TU Darmstadt
The TU Darmstadt is one of the leading technical universities in Germany and stands for excellent and relevant science. Global transformations – from the energy turnaround to Industry 4.0 to artificial intelligence – are decisively shaped by the TU Darmstadt through outstanding findings and future-oriented courses. TU Darmstadt bundles its cutting-edge research in three fields: Energy and Environment, Information and Intelligence, Matter and Materials. Their problem-centered interdisciplinarity and the productive exchange with society, business and politics generate progress for a worldwide sustainable development. Since it was founded in 1877, the TU Darmstadt has been one of the most internationally influenced universities in Germany; as the European Technical University, it is building in the Allianz Unite! a trans-European campus. With its partners from the Rhine-Main Universities – the Goethe University Frankfurt and the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz – it is developing the Frankfurt-Rhine-Main metropolitan region as a globally attractive scientific area.
MI-No. 53/2021, Jutta Witte
TU Darmstadt Kommunikation und Medien Karolinenplatz 5 64289 Darmstadt [email protected]
Twitter: @TUDarmstadt
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