"The challenge to develop a highly flexible coupling is to design a coupling which has a particularly soft characteristic curve", explains Norbert Telaar, Head of Strategic Product Management at RINGFEDER POWER TRANSMISSION, the main task of his team. In the end they developed an innovation in coupling design.
The team started the project based on the principle of a coupling which has proven its reliability in the steel industry and is equipped with several cylindrical elastomeric buffers that transmit torque simultaneously. However, the stiffness of this coupling could only be adjusted to a limited extent.
This is different for the TNR. The stiffness of this coupling is individually adjustable. "On the one hand by using other elastomers, changing from one size to another. On the other hand", states Telaar, "I was confronted with the idea of arranging the buffers in several planes, one after the other, to arrange them in series which will allow for adjusting the stiffness of the coupling."
The result of the development: A highly flexible coupling that is adjustable on account of replaceable elastomer buffers arranged in series. This is also a clear advantage for the maintenance: "This coupling offers a very big advantage in that the polymers, in this case the roll-shaped polymer elements, are very easy to dismount", explains Reinhardt Hackenschmidt, Academic Head for Engineering Design and CAD at the University of Bayreuth.
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