St. Louis, MO: Hum Industrial Technology, Inc. (“Hum”) today announced the release of the Atlas AdapterTM, a railcar bearing adapter equipped with scale-grade load sensing and thermal energy harvesting. This powerful device was built to give shippers, railcar owners, and railroads greater control of and flexibility in their operations when a normal rail scale is not available.
The Atlas AdapterTM is an enhanced bearing adapter capable of determining the weight of a railcar to within ± 1 ton. As the railcar weight changes, such as during loading operations, the Atlas senses that change and begins reporting at a frequent interval until the load settles. A proprietary thermal energy harvesting system built into the Atlas converts the heat of the bearing into usable power for batteryless operation.
Rail shippers, railcar owners, and railroads can now utilize this groundbreaking product for a variety of uses:
· Scale replacement for locations where installing a normal rail scale is not feasible or as a more reliable load measurement in transload operations.
· Load optimization for loading a railcar to its maximum weight without overloading.
· Tank car heel sizing for faster and more efficient cleaning.
· Advanced performance modeling for OEMs with axle-by-axle and side-to-side weight distribution of the railcar including both dynamic and static conditions.
Coupled with the rest of the Hum product portfolio, these data provide a complete picture of rail shipping activities for best-in-class fleet management.
“At Hum, our mission is to drive the next generation of rail shipping by creating the most advanced railcar telematics possible,” says Byron Porter, CEO of Hum. “We are incredibly excited to release this powerful device that really changes the game for rail shippers and railcar owners. Rather than build a device that just provides basic empty or loaded indication, we’ve gone several steps beyond that to give our customers live load monitoring as if they had continuous access to a scale. With the thermal energy harvester we’ve also included, customers can be confident in their investment with the longest lasting device on the market.”
The Atlas AdapterTM is scheduled to be deployed for pilot testing this winter with a full commercial release scheduled for Q1 2023.
About Hum: Hum is a St. Louis-based technology company that designs and builds wireless sensors to drive the next generation of rail shipping. Hum’s portfolio of advanced devices was developed to provide rail shippers and railcar owners with the level of visibility and reliability they have been demanding for years. Hum sensors sync to the cloud to provide customers enhanced safety monitoring, optimized fleet utilization, and predictive wheelset maintenance.
