The innovative Thompson Coupling, featured in the April 2007 edition of FEN, has taken out the prestigious Bradfield Prize for Engineering Excellence from the Sydney Chapter of Engineers Australia.
According to Engineers Australia Sydney Division president Warren Newell, it’s “a truly revolutionary piece of engineering”.
Others describe it as “one of the most significant advances in mechanical power transmission since the 1600s.”
Could this be like inventing a better wheel? Perhaps, because there are hundreds of millions of these devices used around the world in thousands of everyday applications.
In winning the prestigious award Thompson Coupling from Orange, NSW, beat off mega competition from the likes of the Telstra Next G Network, the Orica Botany Ground Water Redemption Project, the Warragamba Dam Deep Water Recovery Project and the new M7 Motorway.
The “Bradfield” win comes only weeks after Thompson Couplings also won the Gold Prize at the Society of Automotive Engineers Australasia (SAE-A) 2007 Automotive Engineering Excellence Awards for its breakthrough new constant velocity joint that transmits torque between rotating shafts with remarkable efficiency and energy savings.
The Thompson Coupling is a fundamental mechanical engineering advance that does away with the compromises of conventional CV joints currently found in millions of applications around the world.
It will enable engineers to design a whole new era of lighter, more efficient, more durable and sustainable machines wherever rotational power is transferred — entire industries such as automotive, mining, marine, aeronautics, manufacturing, defense and more will benefit.
No wonder the growing world wide interest! Some 400 million conventional shaft couplings are currently produced globally each year, at an estimated value well over A$30 billion. Thompson Couplings Ltd already has patents in the United States, Russia, China, South Africa, Singapore and New Zealand with more pending. Commercial orders are now being received and the company is also currently negotiating a wide range of projects and joint ventures with potential alliance partners from around the world. The strategy is to operate as a design and licensing house rather than a manufacturer.
Thompson Couplings is also designing standard adaptors to allow the couplings to be retrofitted to existing equipment.
Invented by Glenn Thompson from Orange in country NSW, the Thompson Coupling connects rotating drive-shafts at different angles, without the vibration, friction, energy loss and rapid wear associated with the conventional CV joints and universal joints currently installed in millions of applications around the world.
A current assignment for the coupling is to produce a constant velocity coupling for an extremely challenging mining industry application where the coupling will have to operate 25m underwater in a thick and highly abrasive slurry of fine sand, meanwhile transmitting a huge 60,000 Newton metres of torque. In this environment the Thompson Couplings will save the customer hundreds of thousands of dollars in reduced maintenance and energy consumption.
www.cvcoupling.com
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