Monday, February 27, 2012

Greatest Technologies for Dependable Plugged Chute Detection

By Allan Smith


Myth or Reality: The Details about Radar, as well as the Proper Selection for Level in Solids Applications

With so many level technologies on the market today, the choice of technology is much more difficult and can be confusing. Process measurement and controls are an essential component for any industrial plant attempting to conform and abide by the strict safety and environmental regulations set forth by state agencies. Not only is it important to know what is contained within any silo or vessel, but it is vital to know whether a silo or flow area has material blocked. Whether that material is too high or low in the containment is also critical as it can cause enormous safety hazards to plant personnel as well as clean-up costs and agency fines. Additionally, installing point detection devices in transfer chutes for blockage detection is also important as it is an inexpensive way of preempting a nasty chute blockage. These transfer chutes are all over the place throughout a mining site, and one plugged chute can stop production, which incurs hundreds of thousands of dollars in downtime production costs. So with that stated, reliable continuous level measurement and redundant point level detection are an important part of any process plant, particularly at a time when improving energy efficiency and reducing operating and maintenance costs are important considerations. Plant safety and meeting stricter environmental regulations become a challenge in this tough competitive marketplace.

Many level applications pose special problems for process level equipment and technologies. Whether the industrial site is a mine, power generation facility, or cement plant, these sites all require technologies that will withstand the tough environmental conditions as well as the harsh nature of the solids applications. These include heavy dust in the airspace, steep angles of repose, high temperatures, changing process conditions, corrosive media, abrasive solids materials, and more. In addition, so many different sizes and shapes of containment mean that many installations have to deal with obstructions like mechanical bracing for structural support.

Plant personnel like reliability engineers, operations managers, facilities engineers, upkeep, and much more are usually searching for methods to improve throughput, decrease downtime, and enhance procedure efficiencies. With technologies on the continuous cutting edge, businesses are designing procedure instrumentation that provides numerous various kinds of methods for supplying dependable level and point level detection solutions for difficult applications. To be able to be effective in this instrumentation marketplace, a business should be providing solutions which are value added to clients, and provide user friendly configuration with high accuracy and reliability in thoughts. With technologies like it's these days, upgrading of level instrumentation at a plant place from older measurement methods to newer styles will certainly lower upkeep expenses, enhance procedure efficiency and offer greater accuracy devices, which will offer numerous advantages. With safety becoming most industrial company's quantity 1 objective, any fundamental level measurement should be dependable, robust and correct and there should also be robust systems to guard against spillages from overfilling vessels.

Regrettably, even with today's advancement in method instrumentation, there is certainly not one particular technologies that can supply undaunted measurement outcomes in each application. Though, it really is the technologies of microwave radar that has been promoted more than the final numerous years because the panacea for all liquid or solid level supplies. Is this actually the case? What has occurred in this instrumentation industry for the thought of offering the correct engineered remedy for the customer's application? Let's actually appear in the technologies on the market for liquids and solids level measurement like by way of air radar, guided wave radar, ultrasonic, and what is getting referred to by Hawk as acoustic wave. In applications, you can find mechanical installation constraints, the circumstances inside the containment, as well as the capabilities in the level device will all have an effect on the selection of measuring device. Inside the level instrumentation spectrum, there are numerous distinct technologies, however the main technologies contenders are ultrasonic or acoustic wave, TDR (guided wave radar), and non-contact microwave radar. It really is intriguing to note also that the technologies of ultrasonic or at times promoted as acoustic wave technologies has flat lined or hit a road block in growth. The technologies of microwave radar has been expanding in the "speed of light" and getting regarded, or at the very least touted because the finish all beat all technologies for measuring level in liquids and solids. Nicely, picking the appropriate technologies from certainly one of these 3 could be a challenge, but if you are trying to find high reliability, low upkeep, and repeatable efficiency, then appear beneath for some recommendations on each and every technologies.




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