Ngn 110- Intro to Engineering - Section 10 - Lab 2 – Electrical

...

Procedure for LIM demonstration

Components:

- A three-phase alternating current power supply

- A vehicle called the stator

- Aluminum railing upon which the stator moved. [pic 4]

The instructor switched on the power supply which was connected to the coils on the stator, which caused the stator to move in one direction and then switch to the opposite direction by automatically switching two power phases using switches located near the ends of the railing. The instructor also changed the current applied which caused the stator to either slow down or speed up, respective to decreasing the current or increasing.

[pic 5][pic 6]

Figure 3 - Bottom of the stator

Procedure of the Automatic assembly and sorting in factory production line:

As demonstrated to us, the production line works by placing metal and plastic rings on the conveyor belt in the order of plastic followed by metal and then having them move on the conveyor belt, the rings go through a series of steps.

[pic 7]First the metal and the plastic rings move on the conveyor belt passing by an actuator called the “kicker” (First) solenoid, the solenoid has a sensor on it that detects if the object passing is plastic and if it is a signal is sent that “kicks” it to a different part of the assembly line, the metal rings move forward through the process.

Afterwards, the plastic reaches the rotary actuator (second solenoid), where it stops at a gate until the metal is directly beneath it and drops down on the metal when the sensor below detects a metal object.

Lastly, the product reaches the Rejection (third solenoid), this is the last process where the item runs through a sensor that checks if there is a piece of plastic on top of a metal, if not, then the “kicker” activates and the defective object falls into a box where it’ll be sent back to the beginning of the process. If the final sensor does detect a plastic object on top of a metal ring, then the conveyor belt moves forward and the product passes onto a box.[pic 8]

During the demonstration, a device called the PLC (programmable logic controller), received signals from the sensors and sent signals to the actuators. The housing of the PLC had LED lights on it that switched on or off whenever the sensor detected either a defective product or a good final product.

Conclusion

The first demonstration has shown how Linear induction motor abbreviated (LIM) works.

It is an electrical engine that is intended to deliver power in a straight line (directly) to produce the force or power required for a certain device, this power is supplied directly through an electromagnetic field which involves no mechanical elements and no speed limitations as well. As for the second demonstration, the procedure of how the automatic assembly and sorting work in a production line was explained in details and how PLC (Programmable logic controller) which is a CPU unit is controlling the whole procedure. The advantages of automation are that the production rate increases, at the same time the products are very high in terms of quality and minimal wage costs. Both demonstrations showed how electrical engineering has benefited our world today.

References

AUS. (2016). ELE LAB SCRIPT. American University of Sharjah.