2024 Vector Awards: Gain Recognition, Receive Cash Prize for Your Innovative Energy Supply System Application

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Are you using an e-chain® for cable management in your application? What about chainflex® cables? Do people describe your use of them as “innovative” or “cool”? Did an e-chain® help bring your sustainable application concept to life? Then enter for your chance to win the 8th biannual Vector Awards! 

The Vector Awards is a way for us to recognize and award the ingenuity of our customers. We want to hear about your design challenges and how igus products helped you solve those problems. Were there harsh environmental conditions to consider? What about high accelerations or long travel distances? Whatever the challenge, you figured out how to overcome it with engineered plastics – and we think that’s pretty awesome. 

A panel of judges will select four winners: first, second and third place as well as a fourth sustainability award for applications making an environmental impact. Winners will receive cash prizes:

  • The Gold Vector: €5,000 prize money and a vector award
  • The Silver Vector: €2,500 prize money and a vector award
  • The Bronze Vector: €1,000 prize money and a vector award
  • The Green Vector: €1,000 prize money and a vector award

        The winners will be selected by an expert jury representing the fields of science, industrial trade shows, specialist media and associations, and will be awarded at the 2024 Hannover Messe (22nd to 26th April 2024).

        Entries are due by February 09, 2024. To submit an application, fill out this form. You can also visit our webpage to learn more about the judges, prizes, conditions of participation, and to download a pdf of entries and winners from 2022. 

        Vector Winners of 2022:


        Gold Vector: Gepber-Szinpad, Hungary

        Gepber Szinpad, a Hungarian company, is developing a new HUNGEXPO multifunctional hall for over 2,000 people in Budapest. What is exceptional is that the hall transforms from a ballroom into an auditorium at the touch of a button – a button that activates a kind of transformer with 43 moving platforms.



        Profile


         Silver Vector: RHENAC GreenTec AG, Germany

        1,400 LED light modules and more than 100,000 Osram LED lights make up the impressive lighting system for the football turf in VELTINS Arena, home of FC Schalke 04, a professional German football club. The modules are mounted on a steel structure consisting of a main beam that is over 80m long and various B and C beams. Since LED light position must be precise according to zones, various plastic energy chains and chainflex® cables for moving applications bring the system to life. The aim was a lightweight, space-saving, reliable cable guidance system.

        Profile

        • What was needed: E4/4 series roller energy chains,E2 series energy chains, e-spool energy chains, chainflex cables
        • Requirements: UV radiation, rain and temperature fluctuations required robust components. Since various strokes had to be accompanied by cable guides, a lightweight system was also desired.
        • Industry: Agricultural engineering
        • Success for the customer: The roller energy chains minimise push/pull forces over a travel of 120m. Together with other compact energy chains for short strokes in the system and matching chainflex® cables, long service life can be achieved, and maintenance costs can be minimised.

        Bronze Vector: Talwandi Sabo Power Limited, India

        This bucket wheel device for extracting coal is used in Banawala, India. The stacker reclaimer moves on a 700m rail structure and must be reliably supplied with power on this route. But the cable drum for supply increasingly allowed failures and damage to the exposed sensitive high-voltage cable, so the operator was looking for a more maintenance-friendly alternative. Today, the system uses an energy chain that, together with cables and monitoring sensors, has significantly increased reliability and safety during operation.

        Profile

        • What was needed: 5050RHD roller energy chain, chainflex cables, iSense module for status monitoring of the energy chain
        • Requirements: The cable drum used before  required a high degree of maintenance and the free-lying high voltage cable was damaged. An increase in cable diameter leads to more weight, hanging cables and higher wear until the cable guidance comes to a standstill. Therefore, the operator is looking for a maintenance-friendly and safe alternative.
        • Industry: Bulk handling
        • Success for the customer: The combination of energy chain, cables and sensors led to increased plant availability, durability, and safety during operation. The plastic energy chain saves weight, simplifies cable guidance, and saves the operator high maintenance effort and costs.


        Green Vector: Dercks Gardening GmbH

        Water thousands of flowerpots by hand? Dercks Gartenbau GmbH, based in Geldern, Germany, thinks that that would cost too much. It is therefore developing an automatic irrigation carriage that moves along a rail at 18 metres per minute and uses its two booms with a span of 45 metres to supply plants with water and the nutrients dissolved in it. The system works so precisely that it uses around 60% less water than conventional irrigation does.

        Profile

        • What was needed: E2 energy chain, iSense sensors for condition monitoring of the energy chain
        • Requirements: The supply cables should run safely in a fail-safe guidance above the ground.
        • Industry: Agricultural engineering
        • Success for the customer: The safe and low-wear guidance in the energy chain enables a long service life, and the area below the cable guide can also be used for potted plants. As a result, the customer expects amortisation of the investment after just four years.

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