Charles Austen Pumps manufactures pumps designed to specific customer requirements that cannot be satisfied by off-the-shelf units.

Much of its work comes down to optimising drive dynamics to produce the desired characteristics, be it a critical medical situation, ultra low noise for pumps in home and office installations, or the guaranteed extra long life of pumps in inaccessible locations.

The cyclic nature of many pumps’ operation induces torsional oscillations in the drive, and this is where much of Charles Austen Pumps’ development effort is focussed, as technical Manager Brian Glover explains: “We have recently built a new test station based on TorqSense, Sensor Technology's SAW sensor, and it is proving it's worth time and time again.”

TorqSense uses a Surface Acoustic Wave device as a frequency dependent strain gauge mounted on the shaft, monitoring variations in resonance frequency of a drive shaft as the torsional load varies and transmitting a radio frequency signal to an adjacent pick up. 

Sensor Technology Ltd is based in Upper Heyford, Bicester, Oxon, UK. www.sensors.co.uk