FACTORY & PROCESS AUTOMATION2010

Wednesday 20th October 2010

10:15 am - 1:15 pm: Technotrans Institute for Technology Transfer Workshop

'New Machinery Directive 2010 and machine safety'

• Machinery Directive 2010, the sole change?

• PL/SIL safety controllers

• Performance level is no guarantee for reliability

Eng. Paul Hoogerkamp, chairman of the Dutch standards committee on Machinery Safety, contributed to the elaboration of European and other international machine safety standards

1:30 pm - 4:30 pm: FDT Group Seminars

'Standardisation in the communication and configuration interface of field devices: the technology - advantages and end-user cases'

• Current Situation / Customer Needs

• FDT – The Solution

• User Benefits

• Success Story

Glenn Schulz, Managing Director - FDT Group

Thursday 21 October 2010

11:00 am - 11:45 am: Safety Plaza Presentation

“Defeat on safety systems can be prevented”

- defeat can destroy all from standards and directives engineered solutions
- irritation and production pressure are mostly the cause of the deliberate defeat
  of safety functions
- the employer will always stay responsible in accordance with the labour directive
- defeat can be prevented through a well thought-out integration of safety systems
- in 2011 the obligations will be tightened by the EN-ISO14119 (the new EN1088)

Innovation and anticipation are smart solutions against manipulation. Every machine builder is kept responsible for the well-being of personnel that operates machines. It happens too often that well thought-out integration of safety systems is forgotten, with the effect that those systems will irritate the operators and they will lead to unintended defeat.

Vladimir Dragosavic, Advisor - SafetyPlaza

1:30 pm - 4 pm: K.U. Leuven Mechanical Department Research Day

'Research results: piezomotors, air bearings and micromanufacturing technology'

Piezomotors combines nano positioning with high speeds

• High positioning accuracy of a few nanometres

• Speeds from 1 nanometre/s to 300 mm/s, unlimited stroke

• Advantages: holding force when powered down, silent, applicable in extreme environments: cryogenic, (ultra-)high vacuum, magnetic fields, oil-free

• Spin-off Xeryon provides customer-specific solutions

Eng. Michaël Houben, Researcher K.U.Leuven - Xeryon  

Air bearings: high speed and nanometre precision

• Speeds up to 1.2 million r.p.m.

• Rotating tables with runout accuracy of a few tens of nanometres

• Actively compensated air bearings (infinite static stiffness)

• Other advantages: oil-free, vibration-free, noise-free, negligible friction and heat build-up

Dr. Eng. Jan Peirs, Industrial Research Fellow, K.U.Leuven

Micro and Nano Manufacturing at K.U.Leuven

• Micro spark erosion and micro milling

• Micro machining of ceramic materials

• ELID grinding

• The NanoGrind machine: 5-axis grinding in the sub-micron range

Dr. Eng. Jan Peirs, Industrial Research Fellow, K.U.Leuven