Embedded smart bearing for condition monitoring of rolling mill for Industry 4.0

The implementation of smart manufacturing in steelmaking includes a continuous monitoring of cluster cold rolling mill to perform an effective activity of prognosis, diagnosis and maintenance. Some back bearings are applied to the outer crown of backup rolls within the mill cage to play the role of physical node, for a cloud-based interconnected monitored system. The concept of smart bearing, equipped with sensors, is here revised and fitted to purpose. Since main goals of monitoring are detecting any abnormal operation of mill and identifying any damage within the bearing, some key measurements to be performed and a trade-off of sensors technologies are proposed, through the Model Based Systems Engineering approach, according to the Industry 4.0.