20.06.19 • The revision of the energy calculations in the SEW-Workbench now enables a more precise determination of the application-related energy consumption of inverters, motors, and gear units in the project planning phase. In addition, you can now produce energetic and economic comparisons of up to three alternative drive solutions in the energy report.
The following particular features are now available:
The energy consumption for the entered travel cycle is already displayed during project planning when a drive is selected.
You can directly compare alternative drive solutions and optimize your selection with regard to energy-related aspects, if necessary. Note that this only makes sense and therefore is only possible with identical types of project planning (controlled or uncontrolled).
To calculate values that are as accurate and representative as possible, the energy consumptions of the operating points are calculated and summed up in time intervals of several milliseconds. With long travel cycles, the calculations may then take very long. For this reason, we recommend that you assume a travel cycle of max. 1 h and adjust the actual duration via the operating times in the energy report.
Comparison of the alternative drive solutions in the energy report
With the energy report available in the toolbox, you can generate a report that allows you to view and analyze the energy consumption of the selected solution. The annual energy consumptions are calculated on the basis of the annual operating time to be entered and the calculated energy demand. Besides the more accurate results, you can now compare up to three drive solutions. To do so, select the applications to be compared with the checkbox "Compare".
The customer-specific price of electricity, the CO2 emission factor, the operating times, and the product prices can be entered individually.
The last page of the report lists the variants as a table where the energy cost savings are shown in green font for better identification. An economic evaluation by means of a static amortization calculation and the equivalent CO2 emissions are also issued
Availability
The revisions are already available as of SEW-Workbench release 2.26.
You can find your version number under the question mark in the menu bar. If you do not yet have a current version, you can perform an online update under "Extras".
Details on the revision of the energy consumption calculations
a) SEW‑EURODRIVE motors
The energy calculations have been revised and/or are available for the following motors:
The calculations are now possible from 0% to 400% torque and from 0% to 200% speed. The new polynomials are valid for motor operation on the supply system and inverter.
b) SEW-EURODRIVE inverters
The energy calculations have been revised and/or are available for the following inverters:
The calculation is made through a complex model considering the specific utilization over the entire cycle.
c) SEW-EURODRIVE gear units
The energy calculations have been revised and/or are available for the following gear units:
Medium gear unit efficiencies are now determined for each travel section and returned to the SEW-Workbench through the interface to the Wesilab gear unit selection program. In addition, the entire energy loss will be returned and can be used directly for the overall calculation.
Reliability of the new calculations
The results of the calculations have been compared at random with already performed laboratory measurements and simulation results. The differences from the calculated loss values were below 5%. In light of this, the calculations can be considered reliable.
Download of the SEW-Workbench
If you have not used the SEW-Workbench in the past, you are welcome to download it from the SEW-EURODRIVE website. You can find the relevant link here.