Systems and methods for sensing wear of reducing elements of a material reducing machine
AssigneeVermeer Manufacturing Company
InventorsJoseph D. Stock, Ty Hartwick, Robert D. Franz
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present disclosure relates generally to systems and methods for sensing wear in machines designed to reduce or break-down material. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to systems and methods for sensing wear of reducing elements used by excavation machines such as surface excavation machines. The present disclosure relates to a wear sensing system including a multilevel wear sensor protection system. The multi-level wear sensor protection system includes a first level of protection, a second level of protection, and a third level of protection.
Claims16
A material reducing machine including wear sensing, the material reducing machine including:
- a rotatable reducing structure including a carrier and a plurality of reducing elements carried by the carrier;
- and
- a wear sensing system including a sensor that senses a general wear state of at least one of the reducing elements by sensing a general physical characteristic of the reducing element without measuring a position of a specific point on the rotatable reducing structure;
- wherein the sensor is an inductive sensor, and wherein the wear sensing system can sense the general physical characteristic of the reducing element when the material reducing machine is performing a reducing operation without contacting the reducing element.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.