WCA March 2020

Products

Fasteners all at sea Bumax, a Swedish manufacturer of stainless steel fasteners, has received a major order for corrosion-resistant and maintenance-free studs to be used for a wind farm off the Belgian coast. The order will supply stainless studs, nuts and washers for the 219MW Northwester 2 offshore wind power plant, where the ability to withstand the challenging North Sea conditions is essential.

BACS screw monitoring system for wind turbines Checking for and replacing ruptured and deteriorated screws are among the most critical tasks of wind turbine maintenance. Japanese company BACS has developed a system for monitoring the screws used on wind turbines. The smart maintenance system collects data through sensors installed on the screws, and is expected to be in service by 2021. The system’s co-developers are the University of Tokyo, a screw manufacturer from Fukushima prefecture, and a wind power maintenance company. The system is expected to make substantial savings in maintenance costs for wind turbines deployed for 20 years. The system uses sensors, embedded into the screws, and wireless transmission devices installed on the outside of the screws; these form a structure of mother and child devices.

❍ Corrosion-resistant and maintenance-free studs from Bumax

The order was placed by Danish steel contractor Bladt Industries, a company that specialises in large-scale and highly complex steel structures including offshore substations and offshore foundations. The wind farm is owned and operated by Belgian company Parkwind. Development of Northwester 2 is ongoing, and the wind farm is expected to be in operation in the first half of 2020. The selected product for the project is Bumax SDX 109, a high-strength super-duplex fastener with resistance to general crevice, pitting and stress corrosion in aggressive environments. Bumax www.bumax-fasteners.com

Ellis’s cable clamps have been used in Bahrain to secure electrical cables laid as part of a $4bn project to enhance the kingdom’s water and electricity networks. Aimed at enabling Bahrain to accommodate its growing population and support its economic progress, the project involves the upgrade of the main backbone transmission network to 400 kV and the construction of three main transmission substations. Ellis’s 2A aluminium cable clamps and special compression springs were specified through Bahrain-based distributor Amad Baeed Electrical WLL by the Korean cable specialist LS Cable & System. Tony Conroy, Ellis’s sales director, said, “The scale of our export operation really does Clamps to the kingdom

differentiate us from the majority of our competitors. At present we have distributors in 39 countries and actively export to more than 40.” Ellis’s 2A aluminium cable clamps are manufactured from LM6 aluminium in sizes between 38 and 168mm. Primarily used in transmission and distribution projects in unpolluted environments, they can also be supplied with an epoxy coating for use in harsher environments, or with neoprene liners for additional cable protection. Ellis Patents Ltd

In phase one, 64 child devices, which connect wirelessly to two mother devices, are installed on a wind turbine to execute simultaneous detection. If a sensor exceeds a certain amount of numeric values it will shift to the non-simultaneous state, while other child devices continue transmission to the other devices, thereby indicating the condition of screws in advance. BACS

www.ellispatents.co.uk LS Cable & System Ltd www.lscns.com

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Fasteners ASIA – March/April 2020