Advance ventilation quality and longevity

Glob­al ven­ti­la­tion fans and sys­tems man­u­fac­tur­er, TLT-Tur­bo, has spent the past five years invest­ing in and equip­ping its on-site test lab. The test lab now pro­vides stream­lined process­es for research, advanc­ing prod­uct qual­i­ty and expand­ed capa­bil­i­ties for mate­r­i­al test­ing. With a focus on par­ti­cle impact wear test­ing, the test lab is dri­ving inno­va­tion for­ward at TLT-Tur­bo as the results help improve prod­uct reli­a­bil­i­ty, qual­i­ty and per­for­mance in their final oper­at­ing environment.

Patrick Baumgärt­ner a Research and Devel­op­ment Engi­neer – and expert in wear and cor­ro­sion pro­tec­tion – at TLT-Tur­bo, has played an instru­men­tal role in build­ing up the test lab – locat­ed at the TLT-Tur­bo Devel­op­ment Cen­tre in Zweibrueck­en, Ger­many – to its cur­rent capa­bil­i­ties. Togeth­er with Sabine Groh, Indus­tri­al Fans Prod­uct Man­ag­er at TLT-Tur­bo, they have been spear­head­ing the cur­rent research.

Cur­rent­ly, the core field of research at the test lab is the test­ing of new wear-resis­tant mate­ri­als and coat­ings for fan com­po­nents. Baumgärt­ner says that the test­ing takes place in the lab’s sol­id par­ti­cle impact wear test bench. There, var­i­ous types of dust or abra­sive par­ti­cles are blast­ed onto the test mate­r­i­al, vary­ing the angle and speed of the blast­ing to observe the result­ing wear. “We also car­ry out cak­ing tests in which we select, for exam­ple, anti-adhe­sive lay­ers for our fans, in order to find suit­able solu­tions for cus­tomer appli­ca­tions. A fur­ther main focus is the analy­sis of process residues that can have an abra­sive or cor­ro­sive effect. Here the com­po­si­tion, size dis­tri­b­u­tions, pH val­ue and con­duc­tiv­i­ty in the elu­ate are deter­mined,” Baumgärt­ner explains.

TLT-Turbo’s approach is to con­tin­u­ous­ly test mate­ri­als, coat­ings and com­po­nents in order to pro­duce fan com­po­nents that are designed for per­for­mance excel­lence in any oper­at­ing envi­ron­ment – no mat­ter how abra­sive. This test­ing is applied to cur­rent and new prod­ucts in devel­op­ment but also to sam­ples that are brought in from client sites in order to estab­lish the wear pat­terns caused by their spe­cif­ic envi­ron­ment. In this way, the com­pa­ny is able to pro­vide each client with a cus­tomized solu­tion that will last longer and require less maintenance.

The test lab now offers facil­i­ties for met­al­log­ra­phy, a stere­omi­cro­scope, a pyc­nome­ter for deter­min­ing the den­si­ty of mate­ri­als and coat­ings, and an auto­mat­ed sol­id par­ti­cle impact wear test bench. “The capa­bil­i­ties of the test lab open a lot of doors for advanced research that will make a pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tion to the engi­neer­ing com­mu­ni­ty at large as well,” says Baumgärt­ner. “Under my super­vi­sion, stud­ies and the­sis research takes place in the lab­o­ra­to­ry in coop­er­a­tion with local col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties. For me, this is the basis for suc­cess­ful­ly research­ing and devel­op­ing new solu­tions in our field.”

Accord­ing to Groh, the test lab has almost end­less pos­si­bil­i­ties for the improve­ment of prod­uct deliv­ery to clients. “Our cus­tomers are often oper­at­ing TLT-Tur­bo fans in abra­sive and/or cor­ro­sive envi­ron­ments. To devel­op suit­able solu­tions that match the wear resis­tance against par­ti­cle impact we use our auto­mat­ed sol­id par­ti­cle impact test bench. Com­pressed air accel­er­ates a defined mass flow of abra­sive par­ti­cles to veloc­i­ties up to 300 m/s and pro­pels them onto a piece of sam­ple mate­r­i­al. This leads to mate­r­i­al loss and wear that we can exam­ine.  It is even pos­si­ble to use orig­i­nal dust from a customer’s plant to eval­u­ate the most suit­able solu­tion for them. By vary­ing the impact angle we can observe sys­tem char­ac­ter­is­tic wear curves. With this knowl­edge we can pro­vide cus­tomized solu­tions for many processes.”

These cus­tomized solu­tions can be best illus­trat­ed in the selec­tion of coat­ings. This, says Groh, has an immense­ly pos­i­tive impact for TLT-Tur­bo clients. “If we were to pro­pose a new coat­ing for a cus­tomer, the wear rate of the coat­ing would be deter­mined first. That is the main sci­en­tif­ic-based deci­sion cri­te­ria for wear resis­tant coat­ings. If the coat­ing has a supe­ri­or wear rate com­pared to oth­er coat­ings or at least a wear rate that is on par with oth­er coat­ings and anoth­er ben­e­fi­cial qual­i­ty such as anti-stick effect, cor­ro­sive resis­tance or a cost advan­tage it will be imple­ment­ed into TLT´s coat­ing portfolio.”

Groh says that they have also con­duct­ed tests that have led to the devel­op­ment of com­plete­ly new pro­pri­etary coat­ings. “Dur­ing the man­u­fac­tur­ing process, coat­ings were test­ed to see the influ­ence of weld­ing heat on coat­ing qual­i­ties – such as the devel­op­ment of cracks – to ascer­tain how to avoid dam­age caused by heat or weld splash­es. We con­duct­ed research and test­ing on com­bin­ing weld­ed coat­ings and thin lay­er coat­ing into a Hybrid Coat­ing which can dra­mat­i­cal­ly increase the oper­a­tional lifes­pan of TLT-Tur­bo fans at their clients’ plants.”

This is one of numer­ous exam­ples of how TLT-Turbo’s test­ing capa­bil­i­ty can pos­i­tive­ly impact ven­ti­la­tion sys­tems across all appli­ca­tions. “Due to the broad data­base of wear tests on var­i­ous mate­ri­als and coat­ings, we are able to offer tai­lor-made wear pro­tec­tion solu­tions for var­i­ous process­es of our cus­tomers,” Baumgärt­ner acknowledges.

Groh agrees, adding that the wide vari­ety of chem­i­cal com­po­si­tions and coat­ing con­di­tions such as accel­er­a­tion of coat­ing pow­der and heat devel­op­ment make it extreme­ly dif­fi­cult to objec­tive­ly find the best coat­ing by car­ry­ing out test­ing at a cus­tomer plant. “The process of reach­ing just ini­tial find­ings in these con­di­tions is very time con­sum­ing. In addi­tion to this, there is a broad vari­ety of con­di­tions to con­tend with at dif­fer­ent cus­tomer plants that hin­der an accu­rate com­par­i­son of dif­fer­ent coat­ings at dif­fer­ent plants. If you test dif­fer­ent coat­ings on one machine you might get a rough esti­ma­tion what coat­ing is supe­ri­or, how­ev­er dif­fer­ent wear rates of coat­ing cause imbal­ances in the impeller and vibra­tions at the fan.”

She elab­o­rates by explain­ing that find­ing a pre­cise com­par­a­tive mea­sure­ment on dif­fer­ent coat­ings is impos­si­ble with­out being able to analyse how the wear rate changes at dif­fer­ent angles. “At the test lab we can con­trol the con­di­tions to find pre­cise­ly what we are look­ing for in a short­er time­frame. Addi­tion­al­ly we are able to repli­cate the fan’s oper­at­ing envi­ron­ment. We can run tests using dust col­lect­ed from the client site while sim­u­lat­ing par­ti­cle speeds that match the client’s envi­ron­ment to pre­cise­ly sim­u­late wear rates.”

In the lab­o­ra­to­ry envi­ron­ment, the TLT-Tur­bo team is also able to deter­mine addi­tion­al coat­ing prop­er­ties as they have the capa­bil­i­ty to run addi­tion­al exper­i­ments, e.g. cor­ro­sive resis­tance, anti-stick effect, robust­ness, heat resis­tance, suit­able appli­ca­tion meth­ods, and com­bi­na­tion pos­si­bil­i­ties like hybrid coatings.

The test lab has afford­ed TLT-Tur­bo engi­neers a deep­er under­stand­ing of the mech­a­nisms behind wear and the effects of spe­cial­ized solu­tions. This has led to new approach­es in prod­uct advance­ment and devel­op­ment that are ground­ed in pro­vid­ing solu­tions that meet mar­ket requirements.

This has also had an impact on TLT-Turbo’s after­mar­ket ser­vice offer­ing. The test lab, has allowed for new cus­tomer ser­vices can be gen­er­at­ed, such as the per­for­mance of spe­cif­ic tests for cus­tomers. “The devel­op­ment of new solu­tions for spe­cif­ic cus­tomer prob­lems is now much faster and more accu­rate. Also the suit­abil­i­ty of low cost approach­es or solu­tions that allow for wear induced dam­ages to be repaired on-site inte­grate effort­less­ly into TLT-Turbo’s exist­ing solu­tions,” Groh concludes.

The test lab enables TLT to con­tin­u­ous­ly improve their solu­tion port­fo­lio for dif­fer­ent cus­tomer prob­lems with a focus on wear. The com­bi­na­tion of under­stand­ing the client’s exact require­ments and chal­lenges and hav­ing a tool that allows engi­neers to find the best solu­tions from a sci­en­tif­ic basis are a key fac­tor for suc­cess in the mar­ket and play an impor­tant role for TLT-Turbo’s on-going prod­uct devel­op­ment and qual­i­ty client delivery.