News/Press picture
06/08/2019

Accelerating laser shaft alignment in hazardous areas

Ismaning, August 2019 – Today, ROTALIGN touch EX breaks new ground for maintenance professionals working in explosive atmospheres in the oil & gas, petrochemical, and chemical processing industries. The new intrinsically safe alignment system from PRUFTECHNIK is ATEX/IECEx Zone 1 certified, eliminates the bureaucracy of “hot work permits” and simplifies alignment in EX areas.

Understanding the need for occupational safety compliance, PRUFTECHNIK, the world leader in laser shaft alignment has continued to improve its intrinsically safe alignment product line according to ATEX/IECEX over the past three decades.

Maintenance technicians in the oil & gas, petrochemical and chemical processing industries will now be able to use the unique PRUFTECHNIK single-laser technology and a ruggedized tablet with touchscreen to perform laser shaft alignment.

sensALIGN single-laser technology offers a superior measurement principle that ensures best measurement accuracy and repeatability in any situation. With a single-laser alignment system, the measurement setup is faster and the machine pre-alignment is not necessary, saving hours of work. No matter the distance or length of the spacer shaft, the measurement accuracy remains consistent. Even over short distances, where accuracy may become a problem in double laser systems, the dual detectors inside the single sensor ensure high accuracy.

ROTALIGN touch EX is Zone 1 certified according to ATEX/IECEX (the equivalent to Class 1 Div 2). Demanding alignment tasks are no exception in hazardous areas. The more reason to use ROTALIGN touch EX packed with many user-friendly alignment features unique to PRUFTECHNIK. These include the continuous SWEEP mode and the Live Move function for the simultaneous real-time machine corrections in both horizontal and vertical directions. vertiSWEEP enables the measurement of vertical machines with only one shaft rotation, and the cardan shaft rotating-arm bracket makes cardan shaft alignment a breeze since measurement can be performed without removal of the cardan shaft. Also available is the Soft Foot Wizard and the Move simulator allows the operator to simulate shim values and horizontal corrections before starting moving the machine.

Data is the new oil

ROTALIGN touch EX users will also benefit from full mobile connectivity that includes Wi-Fi, an integrated camera, RFID and the ALIGNMENT RELIABILITY CENTER 4.0 PC-Software. Users connect from the tablet via Wi Fi within their company network - or through the cloud - directly to the alignment PC software, where specialists can archive, analyze, and process asset-based alignment data for asset performance improvement and reliability programs. Together with the RFID reader, automatic machine identification allows error-free two-way transfer of asset data.

Contact your local PRUFTECHNIK representative for a free product demo.

PRUFTECHNIK is a global maintenance technology supplier with a wide product, service and training range tailored to the needs of the maintenance professionals in the areas of shaft alignment, vibration analysis, condition monitoring and nondestructive testing. Many manufacturing organizations worldwide trust in our solutions for the reliability and condition-based maintenance of rotating machinery.