New enclosure gives a boost to electrical engineering companies

Rittal at world’s leading wind-industry trade fair

• Rittal will be presenting its new VX25 large enclosure system at the “WindEnergy Hamburg” global trade fair.
• This innovation simplifies and accelerates the integration of control and power electronics for the construction of inverter systems in wind energy and energy storage solutions.
• Trials at Woodward Kempen GmbH, a manufacturer of customised frequency inverters for wind turbines, have confirmed the high stability, resilience and efficiency of the VX25.

The wind energy industry is under enormous pressure to cut costs. Electrical engineering companies have to constantly increase the efficiency of their value chains. In this context, Rittal’s VX25 delivers fresh impetus and new capabilities. It is the first enclosure system designed specifically to boost productivity in control and switchgear manufacturing and Industry 4.0 value chains.

With the “SYSTEM PERFECTION.” slogan, Rittal is promising a major innovative leap, which has been made possible by depth of experience and intensive customer dialogue. The VX25 offers the highest possible quality and consistency of data, reduced complexity and savings in time, as well as safe assembly. More than 25 registered property rights demonstrate the high level of innovation involved.

Rittal has invested in state-of-the-art production facilities in order to manufacture the VX25’s novel frame section. New, fully automatic profiling systems and volume production lines with a total of 31 welding and handling robots stand for maximum quality with precision and stability. The result is that the frame section of the VX25, which has a continuous 25-mm pitch pattern, is clearly more stable than that of its TS 8 predecessor, even though its weight is the same.

Trials prove high stability

By the time the new system had been official launched, one customer had already gained its first experience with it. Woodward Kempen GmbH had already been working with the prototypes. This long-standing Rittal customer develops customer-specific frequency inverters for implementation in wind turbines in its Renewable Power Systems business unit. With the new VX25 enclosure, the company has now realised partial inverters for a total output of 4.5 MW, consisting of a combination of three enclosures and weighing approx. 2,000 kg in total.

“It is very important for our applications that the new frame profile is more rigid and thus far more resilient,” says Holger Gehl, who, as Woodward Kempen's Product Line Manager, is responsible for wind energy projects. The demands placed on enclosure systems in wind energy applications are very high. For example, vibrations occur frequently, as Eric Hartmann, Principal System Engineer at Woodward Kempen, reports: “We tested the vibration resistance of the new enclosure and carried out both finite element analyses and vibration tests in the laboratory.” The results convinced Eric Hartmann completely: “The new enclosure is more stable than its predecessor, even before any additional time is spent on design.”

Simplification in design

The mechanical design of the enclosures is planned entirely in a CAD system for the applications at Woodward. Here too, according to Holger Gehl, the Woodward engineers have had their initial experience: “In terms of design, we were happy to observe that we could gain extra freedom in development and needed fewer parts because the frame section is exactly the same throughout.” Eric Hartmann added: “The fact that all the data is available in 3D is extremely important to us, as our mechanical design department can then continue working directly with this data.”

Time savings in assembly

The advantages of the newly developed enclosure system are also noticeable during assembly work at the company’s shop floor. “The doors can be installed much more quickly, while switching to a door that opens through 180° or changing the side of the door hinge are also much faster,” says Holger Gehl, citing further benefits that also help save time: “Anything that can help us manufacture more quickly is definitely a bonus.”

Many factors played a role in choosing the appropriate enclosure system. “We compared different systems in-house by means of an evaluation matrix, and then chose Rittal clearly,” Eric Hartmann explains, justifying the decision in favour of the new VX25 enclosure system.

About Rittal

Rittal, headquartered in Herborn, Germany, is a leading global provider of solutions for industrial enclosures, power distribution, climate control and IT infrastructure, as well as software and services. Systems made by Rittal can be found in more than 90 percent of all global branches of industry, including mechanical and plant engineering, food and beverage production and in IT and telecommunications.

The wide range of products from the global market leader includes configurable enclosures, whose data is available throughout the entire production process. Intelligent Rittal cooling solutions with up to 75 percent lower energy and CO₂ consumption can communicate with the production environment and enable predictive maintenance and service concepts. Innovative IT solutions ranging from IT racks and modular data centres through to edge and hyperscale computing solutions all form part of the portfolio.

Leading software providers Eplan and Cideon complement the value chain, providing interdisciplinary engineering solutions, while Rittal Automation Systems offer automation systems for switchgear engineering. Rittal delivers within 24 hours in Germany – precisely as needed, flexibly and efficiently.

Founded in Herborn in 1961, Rittal is the largest member company in the owner-operated Friedhelm Loh Group. The Friedhelm Loh Group operates worldwide with 18 production sites and 80 international subsidiaries. The entire group employs 11,500 people and generated revenues of around €2.5 billion in 2017. In 2018, the family-run business was named one of Germany’s leading employers by the Top Employers Institute, for the tenth year running. Within the scope of a Germany-wide survey, Focus Money magazine identified the Friedhelm Loh Group as one of the nation’s best providers of vocational training for the third time in 2018.

For more information, visit www.rittal.com  and www.friedhelm-loh-group.com 

Corporate Communications

Regina Wiechens-Schwake
Phone: +49 2772 505-2527
E-mail: wiechens-schwake.r@rittal.de

Hans-Robert Koch
Phone: +49 2772 505-2693
E-mail:  koch.hr@rittal.de

Christian Abels
Phone: +49 2772 505-1328
E-mail: abels.c@rittal.de

Rittal GmbH & Co. KG
Auf dem Stützelberg
35745 Herborn, Germany

www.rittal.com