Festo Motion Terminal: the flexible cost-cutter
With a global production volume of 1.8 billion car tires per year, the focus is very much on efficiency and productivity. This is where the Festo Motion Terminal VTEM comes in: it digitises pneumatics, thereby speeding up processes and reducing costs, for example when transferring the rubber layer to the tire building machine.
Before the green tire* is produced in the tire building machine, the incoming rubber plies are imprinted with different patterns so as to prepare the tire material perfectly for the tire-building machine. Small pneumatic cylinders apply the different patterns to the rubber layers via cams. These must be controlled very precisely in a pressure range of 0.05 to 8 bar. Previously, a proportional valve was used for each individual pressure zone in this application. This design required a lot of installation space and a complex controller.
Simpler and less expensive
This process is now simpler and less expensive thanks to the automation platform VTEM because instead of individual proportional valves the Festo Motion Terminal requires only half as many valve slices. With the Festo Motion Terminal, 16 independent pressure zones can be set up. The key here is the digitisation of the pneumatics: the different functions of the Festo Motion Terminal VTEM can be set using software apps.
For this particular task in the tire manufacture process, the Motion App “model-based pressure control” is very effective. This compensates for negative influences on the pressure control, such as dead volumes caused by tube lengths, and improves the control precision. The current pressure can be measured for quality control purposes. The connection via Ethernet-based fieldbus interfaces to controllers of standard manufacturers is a practical feature. Even the spare parts list is shorter, as just one valve type is required for many different applications. Since one valve slice on the VTEM can control two valve outputs independently of one other, the installation space required is also smaller.
Revolution in automation technology
Fast activation of software apps makes it possible to replace over 50 individual components. This is revolutionising pneumatics by increasing flexibility and energy efficiency, and accelerating production processes. Just as the smartphone turned the mobile communication market on its head a decade ago, so too is the Festo Motion Terminal set to revolutionise automation technology. The new type of function integration – combined with software apps – simplifies the entire value chain, since only one piece of hardware is now required. This is why experts are calling the Festo Motion Terminal VTEM a revolution in automation technology.
Thanks to the fast activation of new functions via apps, machine developers can create a basic machine type and then select the relevant apps to equip it with different functions and features in accordance with customer requirements. Assigning functions via software has the added benefit of preventing tampering and protecting know-how, since it’s not possible to tell from the outside which functions the valves are executing. Maintenance is also simplified, as long lists of spare and wearing parts are a thing of the past. Condition monitoring is possible using the integrated pressure sensors on the automation platform VTEM.
* In technical jargon, a green tire is the raw, unprofiled tire.
费斯托 (Festo)是一家全球性的独立的家族企业，总部位于德国埃斯林根。自成立以来，Festo在工业自动化技术和技术教育方面制定标准，从而为环境、经济和社会的可持续发展做出贡献。公司为超过35个行业的30万家工厂和过程自动化客户提供气动和电驱动自动化技术解决方案，其中生命科学和实验室自动化业务受到越来越多的关注。Festo产品和服务遍布176个国家。2023年，费斯托在全球61个国家的250多个分支机构拥有约20600名员工，实现销售额36.5亿欧元。每年约7%的销售额用于研发。在这家学习型企业，1.5%的销售额用于基础和进一步培训。Festo 教学培训 (Didactic SE) 是全球领先的技术教育和培训供应商，为全球客户提供工业环境中全面的数字化和常规学习解决方案。
