For 70 years, the provider LEWA from Leonberg in Baden-Württemberg has specialised in pumps and plants for fluid metering. The world’s leading manufacturer of metering and process diaphragm pumps produces individual, efficient system solutions for its customers. Areas of application are metering requirements, conveyance, mixing and odorising tasks – i.e. mixing of odour-intensive substances, especially with gases – in very different industries: from chemicals to mining.
The diaphragm metering pumps of LEWA’s ecodos series are used in sensitive areas such as food or pharmaceuticals, for example for adding additives in the pharmaceutical sector or metering aroma in food. One specific application is the addition of omega-3 oil to baby
food. The ecodos series operates in the socalled low-pressure range, i.e. at a maximum discharge pressure of 20 bar, and with a flow rate of 16 to 1460 litres/hours. This requires pumps that not only allow precise control of the amount and time of addition, but also deliver the ingredients particularly gently.
Drives for wide ranges
“For this application, we now also offer our ecodos pumps with IE5+ motors from NORD for wide range control”, Maurice Wirkner, application manager at LEWA, explains. The permanent magnet synchronous motors are either operated as stand-alone motors – i.e. directly flanged to the motor – or with a decentralised frequency inverter.
NORD DRIVESYSTEMS offers the IE5+ with powers from 0.35 to 3.7 kW. With its fanless design, it is ideal for hygiene-sensitive applications and easy to clean. The optional IP69K protection class even allows the motors to be cleaned with a high-pressure cleaner.
An end to overdimensioning
Until now, LEWA had operated its diaphragm metering pumps with classic asynchronous motors or with servo drives including corresponding servo inverters, often combined with stroke adjustment. In the meantime, the pump expert has expanded its selection to include NORD motor technology. For good reason: Permanent magnet synchronous motors are significantly cheaper to purchase than servo drives and they make servo inverters and stroke adjustment superfluous. Classic asynchronous motors, on the other hand, are relatively inefficient outside the nominal speed range and therefore often had to be used in an overdimensioned form. Here, too, the NORD motors are much more efficient alternatives.
“The drive system with the IE5+ is much easier to handle and realises high-precision metering over a very wide adjustment range”, Wirkner emphasises. The NORD IE5+ has a constant torque that can be called up from motor speed 0 rpm (standstill) to the nominal motor speed. This ensures a particularly smooth start-up of the system, which protects the sensitive products LEWA customers work with in the food and pharmaceutical sectors.
Efficiency of 95 percent
The extreme control range and the short-term high overload capability of the IE5+ motors from NORD often make the use of several pumps for different flow rates superfluous for LEWA’s customers, which results in a reduction of the drive variants in the overall system. This minimises administrative costs and streamlines production, logistics, storage and service processes. The outstanding 95 percent energy efficiency of the IE5+ motors adds to this.
“With its high energy efficiency, this drive system provides many advantages for our customers and thus also for us as a future-oriented pump and system provider”, Maurice Wirkner explains.
Development accompanied as a project partner
LEWA accompanied the development of the highly efficient IE5+ motor as a kind of project partner. “We were already able to test the motor together with our pumps as a system during the prototype state and thus gain initial experience”, application manager Wirkner says. Technical sales, product management and the NORD service were able to provide very good and competent support here. “We are also very satisfied with the cooperation with NORD for the previous orders, especially with the flexibility.
” The cooperation between LEWA and NORD is definitely to be continued. The next project is already planned: The partners are developing a trade fair demonstrator of a pharmaceutical metering pump with IE5+ motor and decentralised NORDAC ON+ frequency inverter from NORD, which illustrates the advantages of the wide-range control in metering with the LEWA ecodos diaphragm metering pump
