MOTORS | CONTROL
UNDER CONTROL How the use of e ective motor control using servo drives has streamlined
e ciencies at a South Wales company.
By installing servo drives with
integrated functional safety,
HMIs and controllers from
KEB Automation on its new
production line, Concrete Canvas
has reduced wiring installation costs
and has greater exibility in terms of
future expansion plans for machines
and additional lines.
Based in Pontyclun, Wales,
Concrete Canvas is the sole
manufacturer of the award-winning
products, Concrete Canvas (CC)
and CC Hydro (CCH), which are
manufactured in South Wales and
exported to more than 80 countries.
CC is a new material technology
called a geosynthetic cementitious
composite mat, or GCCM. The
material is a exible concrete
impregnated fabric that hardens on
hydration to form a thin, durable,
waterproof concrete layer.
In Spring 2018, due to
We needed the
drives to be exible
and easily expandable to
allow easy, rapid future
expansion of the line and
individual machines,
with as little panel
wiring as possible
increased demand for
its products, Concrete
Canvas purchased a
new facility in Pontyclun,
around six miles from
the original factory in
Pontypridd. This new
site is around three times
the size of the Pontypridd
facility, providing the
company with signi cant
opportunities for continued growth.
Graham Rose, engineering
manager at Concrete Canvas, is
responsible for developing the
new production lines at Pontyclun,
including machinery, controls and
automation systems. He states: “As
there was no off-the-shelf machinery
available for producing our new
product, all the design and build work
was performed in-house.”
The continuous production
line for the new prototype
rolled product comprises
a variety of machines,
equipment and automated
systems, including
unwinders, dry cement
powder handling systems,
a main process section
that forms the cement lled
web, coating machines,
web handling machines and
rewinders.
“The prototype production line
is quite complex. There are many
different machines with parts that
need to be moved at different speeds.
We therefore started to search for a
suitable supplier of drives that could
handle this type of application. We
needed the drives to be exible and
easily expandable to allow easy, rapid
future expansion of the line
FEBRUARY 2020 | WWW.EUREKAMAGAZINE.CO.UK 31
/WWW.EUREKAMAGAZINE.CO.UK