Interview with Dieter Wohlschlegel, Engineering Manager, ACE Stoßdämpfer GmbH

Engineers and designers have high expectations of suppliers of industrial components. How does one of the market leaders manage to meet needs that cannot be covered by a standard product? The editorial team clarified these and other questions with Dieter Wohlschlegel, Engineering Manager at ACE Stoßdämpfer GmbH.

Mr. Wohlschlegel, if you look at automation as an example, the need for increasingly efficient drives is obvious. Why do you think developers should consider the issue of damping?

Dieter Wohlschlegel:

"Because part of the issue of efficiency is ensuring that the dimensions of overall designs don't get out of hand. If a drive is also to take over deceleration at the end of a route, a more powerful, larger drive must be installed, which often also consumes more resources. This is where our electroless products come into their own as a braking solution, reducing both the structural and ecological footprint of the drive design. Savings result, among other things, from the fact that masses can be moved with the smallest possible pneumatic cylinder thanks to miniature and industrial shock absorbers, allowing the use of smaller valves and maintenance units. With the help of these hydraulically operating components, cycle rates can be increased and machines and materials can be protected. Since 2016, when ACE Stoßdämpfer GmbH became part of the Stabilus Group, we have been offering suitable machine elements for over 90 percent of all industrial designs. These cover both shock absorption and the increasingly important area of vibration damping. Our third and fourth pillars are safety products and solutions for speed control."

That sounds like a lot of individual solutions. How do you prevent your customers from losing track?

"Our website is a good example. We saw digitalization as an opportunity early on. It started with our own calculation programs, which taught us how important it is to visualize our solutions. It continued with the first websites, into which we quickly integrated the online 3D CAD library. It was then logical to combine both approaches in our own design and configuration programs. We have developed intuitive configurators for most of our products, which customers can use to find the ideal solution in just a few steps. An online store rounds off this offering, meaning that we are available to design engineers around the clock, every day of the year. For those who prefer to work offline, we can be contacted by telephone. And on request, a large team of application experts from our technical office and field service as well as from the entire Stabilus Group is also available on site to provide advice."

Can't these personnel costs be saved? After all, there will be more and more digital natives on the job market for design engineers in the coming years

"Yes and no. It's true that digitalization is increasing and we can now cover a lot of ground online. But on the other hand, the complexity of inquiries is also increasing and the associated engineering power required is growing. On the one hand, we can now answer customer inquiries using standard dampers and online calculations. On the other hand, if this is not the case, it often becomes very specialized. Special machines are becoming more and more individual and therefore more complex. Accordingly, we have to provide support and develop customized solutions from standard products. We are currently supporting a large number of projects in the field of renewable energies, including buoy power plants, wind turbines and solar trackers. Our construction elements are used in a wide variety of functions, depending on the respective requirements of the application. These are mainly special, individually designed damper types that are precisely adapted to the ambient conditions and developed with the aid of simulations. Particularly in these fields of application, high mechanical load capacity, corrosion resistance and a long service life are decisive criteria - requirements that our products reliably fulfill and for which ACE is known for its high quality and solution expertise.

Can you explain a little more about the simulation-based development work at ACE or are you already revealing company secrets?

{laughs briefly} "No, not at all, this is state-of-the-art for technology leaders today. The special thing about us is that we and our customers benefit from all the project work. Our intensive collaboration with customers has already resulted in several new products in the form of small series. For example, we have taken an existing damping solution from the catalog range and then adapted it precisely to the requirements of the specific application. A good example of this is the installation of a total of 10 unique miniature shock absorbers that work in a chip manufacturer's handling system. The task there is to protect three precision axes from damage. In the first step, we worked with the customer to determine the right type of damper for each axle, which had to meet the exact specifications. We also had to take into account the maximum tolerated support force in the event of a crash. In a second step, we used all the key data to simulate the bore pattern for the small shock absorber types in question. We were able to decelerate the energy and speed evenly over the entire stroke on the computer and significantly reduce the maximum support force. In a third step, we optimized the standard shock absorbers by adapting them to the simulation results. This required a series of tests on a specially designed linear test bench equipped with high-end axes and the latest sensors and evaluation programs. Only after the simulation results could be validated using the series tests was the time ripe for the small series and their regular delivery to our high-tech customers. Thanks to simulation-based developments, we were also the first industrial shock absorber manufacturer to be able to offer data from digital twins for integration into virtual models.

Can you give us an outlook on the next innovations?

"Our Industrial POWERISE® actuators, a new class of electromechanical drives for industry, are brand new on the market. These actuators are available with screw pitches between 2 mm and 25 mm and can lift, lower and position components at the touch of a button. Forces between 250 N and 4,000 N and stroke ranges from 50 mm to 350 mm qualify them for the automatic movement of flaps and hoods or doors and gates, for example. The special thing about Industrial POWERISE® and ACE is that our customers can use this innovation immediately, even in very small quantities and in combination with the industrial gas pressure and gas tension springs from ACE-NEWTONLINE. The fact that more ergonomics and safety are now possible virtually at the touch of a button is highly interesting for many modern designs and also for retrofitting. This is demonstrated, for example, by the latest application on the 45 kg machine tool hoods of one of our customers in the Netherlands. This customer is highly satisfied with the optimization of operating comfort and the considerably easier daily machine set-up thanks to Industrial POWERISE®."

The interview was conducted by

Robert Timmerberg M. A., trade journalist, plus2 GmbH, Düsseldorf

Links: https: //www.ace-ace.de/

https://www.stabilus.com/de