Commercial vehicle / (pay)load measurement in wheel-end / rotating OR′s

To-day´s load sensing/measurement system developments in vehicle wheel-ends focus mainly on car applications using e.g. specially developed bearing units with rotating inner rings. This bearing unit concept has mostly strain-gauges/wires fitted in the inside or on the outside of the stationary bearing outer ring.

These strain-gauge sensors measure the deformation of the steel bearing ring at service conditions. As these output signals depend on Young´s modulus, this sensor application is sensitive to hysteresis and temperature creep which require extensive hardware and software developments to com- pensate for this.

Commercial vehicle wheel-ends use about 95% world-wide rotating outer ring bearings, the inner rings fixed with an interference fit on the stationary stub axle. At service conditions the inner rings will creep/rotate on the stub axle, consequently fixed strain-gauges/wires on the inner rings will be damaged and will fail.

Therefore the application of this sensor type is not possible for wheel-ends with rotating outer ring bearings. The (pay)- load measurement in a commercial vehicle wheel-end should therefore be done differently.

IS works on the development of an idea/- system, how to realize accurate wired (pay)load measurement for driven and non-driven wheel-ends. This system should use as much as possible standard components, e.g. catalogue bearings, etc.. The overall system cost for the wheel-end modification and implementation should be relatively low.

You will be informed in detail about this development if you mail this request to IS. Updates on this subject via Twitter.