Flexar® Continuous Level Systems Successful on Cement Powder
and Flyash at Batavia Concrete
PROBLEM:
“I have no idea how much material we have left in our cement
and flyash bins. We need a reliable solution to make us more
efficient.”
EXPLANATION:
Batavia Concrete is located in Montgomery, IL and is one of many
concrete batch plants operated by Prairie Materials in northern Illinois. Like
most concrete plants, Batavia uses cement and flyash as ingredients. Ready
mixed concrete batch plants take the basic components needed to form
concrete, i.e. sand, rock, cement powder and flyash and batch them
together for loadout into concrete trucks. Concrete is used
as a versatile construction material and there are literally tens
of thousands of batch plants around North America.
Unfortunately,
Batavia’s facility only used high and low level indicators. Their
operations manager, Fred Thompson, had no idea how much material was
remaining at any given time. This delayed replenishment and sometimes
they couldn’t fit a truckload of cement or flyash into the bin. They
needed to know the level of the material at any given time in order
to become more efficient.
SOLUTION:
Chief application engineer for Monitor Technologies, Andy Bowman,
decided to employ the Flexar technology and product to help Batavia
Concrete. Monitor Technologies introduced the Flexar® guided
wave radar continuous level measurement system to Batavia Concrete
in December 2005. Monitor strategically acquired this level
sensing system during 2005 to add to its significant solution capability
for powder and bulk solids applications. Flexar is proven
technology combined with five decades of bulk solids experience
and unique inventory management software solutions. Monitor
knew it had the right solution for Batavia Concrete.
Flexar is a guided wave radar continuous level sensor. Distance/level
is measured by the time-of-flight of the reflection of a microwave
signal (transmitted down the wave-guide, which is a heavy-duty
0.3” SS cable with 3.9 ton tensile strength) off the material
surface. Cement and flyash both have relatively low dielectric
constants and Flexar’s direct measuring mode was successful
in providing real-time continuous updates of the material level
during filling and draw-down.
Both Flexar units are installed with 34’ cable length. The
4-20mA signal from each Flexar unit is connected to a panel meter
in the control room. Fred Thompson, Regional Operations Manager
of Batavia Concrete, has been satisfied with this solution ever
since it was installed. Observations during filling cycles
were very good right off. Flexar didn’t skip a beat,
even with the heavy dust kicked up during pneumatic filling.
Fred Thompson reports that he desires to install Flexar units
at other plants within his regional area of responsibility. He
prefers the true continuous nature of Flexar guided wave radar
units.
Give Monitor Technologies a call and let us put our creative solutions
to work for you!
SiloPatrol® SE Measuring coal powder levels when nothing else will work ….
Coal-fired power plants are commonplace around the
world. In order for these power generating stations to create
huge amounts of electricity the turbines need to be feed with steam
and the steam created by boilers that are fired by … yep,
coal. But coal as it comes from the mining operations is not
what is fed to the burners. First it is ground or pulverized
into powder. It is not unusual for the coal powder to be stored
in silos awaiting the demand for it to be fed to the burners. The
inventory of coal powder in these silos needs to be monitored to
allow for efficient operation of the power plant.
So, how do we monitor the inventory of coal powder in a silo? Not
easily. In one typical application the power plant personnel
found that the only technology that would work reliably is the modern
smart weight & cable system from Monitor Technologies LLC, the
SiloPatrol® SE.
Anhui Tongling power plant in Anhui province in China had tried
almost ever technology possible to get a reliable level measurement
in their 5 coal powder silos. Radar, ultrasonic and others
were tried, but none worked reliably. It wasn’t until
Beijing Conasen walked in and proposed that the Tongling plant use
the SiloPatrol SE smart cable-based inventory monitoring system that
the power plant personnel found a reliable solution.
Mr. William Yuan, sales manager for Beijing Conasen indicates that
the power plant tried many major brands of ultrasonic, radar, and
other technologies but that due to good relations with the Tongling
plant personnel he was able to sell three SiloPatrol SE model SMU
sensors and an HMI operator interface to them. The units were
installed by plant personnel. Because of the heavy amount of
coal dust in the silos an air purge using dry compressed air was
used. The SiloPatrol sensor incorporates the patent-pending
use of Hall-effect sensor technology, a split-compartment enclosure,
microcontroller, redundant optics and many other valuable features
and technology to ensure reliable measurement even in challenging
dust applications like coal powder.
The SiloPatrol SE system has been working reliably and the plant
has since purchased two additional sensors and connected them into
the same HMI operator interface. This same sensor technology
is working reliably at other coal-fired power stations in China as
well.
For more information on the SiloPatrol SE click
here or contact Monitor Technologies LLC at 800-766-6486 in
the USA and 630-365-9403 worldwide.
PROBLEM:
Unfortunately,
Batavia’s facility only used high and low level indicators. Their
operations manager, Fred Thompson, had no idea how much material was
remaining at any given time. This delayed replenishment and sometimes
they couldn’t fit a truckload of cement or flyash into the bin. They
needed to know the level of the material at any given time in order
to become more efficient. 
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