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| Automation of Chemical Processes |
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| Figure1 shows a factory that produces chemical powder material used in the ceramic industry.
The factory consists of three main stages. The first stage is
raw material preparation and weighing, the second stage is mixing &
storage in silos, and the third stage is furnace filling & production. |
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Figure1: Chemical
manufacturing facility |
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| Stage One: Raw material weighing |
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| The main function of this stage is to weigh
the raw material stored in the eight silos. The raw material
will be weighed in hoppers by load cells. The weight is displayed on
the indicators of each silo. The operator can manually control the set weight by adjusting from the
HMI interface or automatically control via the control panel. |
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| Stage Two: Mixing, furnace
storage, and silo filling |
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| The raw material is mixed
according to a chemical formula for a specific material weight and for a
required mixing time. The mixed material is then transferred to the furnace storage silos. The operator can either automatically operate this stage via the control panel or manually adjust the mixing time and the chosen mixed material
formula via the touch screen installed on the control panel. |
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| Stage Three: Furnace filling & production |
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The mixed material is finally conveyed to the furnace. The operator adjusts the required temperature for each furnace (four
furnaces) to produce the final production. Also, the system adjusts
the feed speed of the material entry by using inverters and
AC motors. |
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| The Control panels (Figure 2) shows
the control panel used to operate stage one. The
control panel consists of four GWDT scale indicators and ALTUS PLC
(Grano series) with relays and contactors for automatic operation. The operator can manually operate the system using thrcontrol panel's push buttons. |
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Figure 2: Stage One control
panel |
| Figure 3 shows the control
panel used to operate stage two and three. The control panel consists of ALTUS PLC (PICCOLO series), a Cimerex touch
screen, interfacing relays, and contactors for motor driving. The stages can be automatically operated using PLC and Touch screen technology or manually
via the control panel's push buttons. Four inverter panels are also used to control the feed speed of the
mix in to the furnaces. |
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Figure 3: Stage Two and Three
control panel |
| For more details about ALTUS PLC. Go to the ALTUS website |
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