Indian Summer in Siemensstadt Wincor Nixdorf moves into a new ...

Company profi le
With plasma jet
and electron gun
to great achievements
TACR puts a lot into coating high-quality gas turbine airfoils
so that the heavily used parts last as long as possible.
In Unit 8 of the Siemens Technopark
it is going well. Here
everything revolves round metal
and ceramic coating – in
short the refi ning of heavily
used components. More precisely
here three to 30 kilogram
turbine airfoils of gas turbines
are refi ned in a high tech process
with razor-thin metal and
ceramic coats. Responsible for
this fi ddly work is the company
Turbine Airfoil Coating and Repair
GmbH, in short TACR. “We
refurbish airfoils of every size
from gas-driven power station
turbines and provide them
with an optimal and long-life
coating,” says TACR Managing
Director Joachim Wolter. And
with the possibilities that TACR
has at the Siemens Technopark
site, the company is worldwide
in the forefront in the matter
of turbine airfoil coating.
It started in 1993 when
TACR was still a part of the Moabit
gas turbine works. “Then
we were hived off in 1996 to be
able to respond more fl exibly
to the demands of the service
business as a small fi rm,” remembered
Wolter. At that time
TACR was able to continually
expand the surface fi nishing of
turbine airfoils. “We invested a
lot of money in the production
technologies that are necessa-
Processing the turbine parts with the plasma jet is a dazzling business
Do you actually know the tenants in the building next to you?
Do you know what the company opposite does?
ry to get the coating desired by
the customer on to the component.
This is necessary so that
the very expensive and heavily
used parts can achieve more
working hours,” explains the
managing director.
Today TACR can look back
on eleven years coating experience.
And the demand is constantly
rising, all the same the
company –
that by the
way is a majoritycompany
of Siemens
and a
subsidiary of a Joint Venture
with the American turbine coater
Chromally – succeeds in extending
the life of every single
turbine airfoil. “For the operator
of a gas turbine, the important
thing is to increase the energy
performance of a turbine.
That means achieving the greatest
possible output, meaning
electricity, with the least possible
input of energy i.e. fuel,”
Wolter puts the principle in a
nutshell. To do this the turbine
airfoils are exposed to temperatures
of approx. 1 050 to
1 200 degrees Celsius during
the operation of the turbine.
So that they survive this strain
each airfoil receives alongside
the metallic “wear coat” also a
heat insulating ceramic coat.
Protected in this way the most
heavily stressed components
still become 50 000 operating
hours “old”.
But that is only when maintenance
of the airfoils is carried
out after about half the operating
time. This is what happens
in practice: the “worn” turbine
airfoils fi rst of all have the coating
removed, are cleaned and
Assembly of a turbine Siemens AG, Photo: Martin Adam
The turbine airfoils received
their ceramic coating in a
cloud of vapour
mechanically processed. Then
the “naked” metal surface of
the component receives a new
metal coating and then the ceramic
coating again. Of course
the coatings must be applied
fi nely and evenly. That happens
with the help of a plasma
jet that heats the component to
850 degrees and fi nally shoots
very fi ne metal powder evenly
on the air-
foils. The
ceramic coating
is applied
among
other things
with the help of an electron
gun to the airfoils. “You have
to imagine that the airfoil is
enclosed in the ceramic powder
as if in a cloud of vapour,”
Wolter explains the procedure
by which the airfoils are vapour-coated
with ceramic material
with a thickness of 250 to
400 mµ.
Explanation: 1000 mµ corresponds
to 1 millimetre. It
takes about three weeks for
one single airfoil to be ready
for use again. “So that we can
complete all orders in this time
scale, our approximately 180
staff work six days a week in
three shifts,“ says Wolter. The
order books are full: 7000 to
8000 airfoils are permanently
lying in the large factory sheds.
“In order to be able to work
more effectively we have recently
extended our area in
the Siemens Technopark from
5 800 square metres to about
9000 square metres in buildings
5302 and 5303. Furthermore
our main building Unit
8 is going to be extended upwards
soon with extra offi ce
space.” reveals Wolter.
Under the heading “Company Profi le”, you will learn more about the other tenants in the
Siemens Technopark. In every edition of the “Park News” we will introduce companies.
Nothing happens at Tektronix without “Good Vibrations”
Can communication be
measured? Yes, it can. It can
be done with know-how and
the highly sensitive devices
from Tektronix. “Our customers
include the who’s who of
the communications sector,”
says Andreas Kallmann, Managing
Director of Tektronix
in the Berlin Siemens Technopark.
Among them manufacturers
such as Nokia, Siemens,
Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent
and operating companies such
as Vodafone, T-Mobile or even
China Mobile. All of them and
many more nationally and internationally
active companies
are among the customers of
Tektronix – the leading company
worldwide in matters of
communication measurement
technology.
In the Siemens Technopark
130 staff are developing and
manufacturing measuring devices
for the next generation
of mobile phone technology
(4G). “We are supporting our
customers in developing, installing
and operating their
systems,“ Kallmann explains.
The protocol testers from Berlin
play a central role in this.
In close cooperation with the
manufacturers and operators
of mobile phone devices and
networks these measuring devices
are being constantly advanced.
“Thus the manufacturers
can test in their laborato-
Tektronix leases several fl oors
ries whether their devices fulfi l
the standards,” says Tektronix
Managing Director Kallmann.
The operators in turn can test
with the measuring technology
of the US American company
whether their systems work
fl awlessly or analyse and remove
possible problems.
Tektronix is an American
company with Head Offi ce in
Portland in the US state of Oregon.
Tektronix was founded by
Howard Vollum the inventor
of the oscilloscope in 1945.
Oscilloscopes are devices with
which sensitive oscillations can
be measured and signals of digital
transmitters and receivers
adjusted and corrected. What
is measured is the behaviour
of a circuit to certain electronic
requests
and oscillations.
Testing
video signals
or picking
out sources of interference is
the task of the devices produced
by Tektronix. But that is not
enough: with the highly sensitive
oscilloscopes not only can
new communication devices
be set exactly also error diagnostics
in switching developments
can be carried out substantially
more effi ciently.
„Previously the business
section of communications
measuring technology belonged
to the Siemens measuring
devices plant,” recalls Kallmann.
The protocol measuring
technology started up here
in Berlin in the middle of the
Company profi le
The company’s oscilloscopes are used by all leading mobile phone manufacturers and operating companies.
Communication is measurable
with highly sensitive devices
eighties as a whole new area
of communication measuring
technology. The fi rst protocol
tester K1195 was adopted universally
and has become a legend.
But as communications
measuring technology was not
a core busi-
ness for Siemens,
it sold
the protocolmeasuring
technology in 1997. Since
then Tektronix has successfully
further developed this business.
As market leader Tektronix
has worldwide sales and a
closely-knit network of representation
all over the world. In
total about 4000 staff work for
Tektronix.
In Berlin Tektronix has meanwhile
established itself fi rmly
on several fl oors on the Siemens
Technopark site. “We
have refurbished to our requirements
and have leased
these offi ces in Unit 1 since
2000,” says Kallman.
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