I am looking for a way to sense and/or monitor torque pressure on auger shafts. We have recently had failures due to the auger tube breaking on our raw materials delivery system. (ie.sand as well as other dry materials)

How is the auger driven?

Tony,

I use a Binsfeld strain gage telemetry system for a job like this. It provides both static and dynamic torque.

Walt

You MIGHT aught to be more concerned with alignment than torque. Of course I don't know your exact situation but drives and screws are USUALLY designed to handle the loads they carry. If this machine has ever ran correctly then it's probably not torque related.

As for measuring it... you could spend several thousand dollars for a torque indicating disc or probably just measure the amperage of the system, and equate that to torque through the gear train mathmatecally.
Gary

It's always a good idea to to measure shaft aligment and get a "rough" estimate of Static torque. I would not assume that the machine was designed correctly or that it is being operated and maintained correctly, since that should he part of the failure evaluation. I would not assume that it is a Static torque problem, since dynamic forces are present in augers and drive systems. I worked on an anger system where plant personnel kept replacing the broken parts with larger ones; only to have the next failure occur at another location in the system. The weakest link in the chain usually fails first!

Walt

It has been my experience that breakage of a screw (assumming that this is a CEMA design screw conveyor) is almost always related to improper design.

If you either post here or send me the particulars of your application, it would be a great trip down memory lane for me to review the design. I spent 11 years designing screw conveyors and still remember a few things.