Silo Control, Silo Protection and Silo Monitoring Systems
Bulk material storage silos provide a safe and efficient way of storing valuable raw materials. Filling and discharging of silos should be carefully handled to keep plant and operators safe. Polimak silo control and monitoring systems include wide range of powder handling equipment, automation systems and software solutions to operate and protect the silos in most efficient way. Polimak brings one of the most sophisticated silo control, monitoring and protection system to bulk materials handling industry, letting the plant owners monitor and manage their silos at one or more locations locally or globally.
Silo Control System
Silo control and protection systems play an essential role in bulk material storage and handling processes. PLC based systems provide realtime full control over silo while maintaining plant, silo and worker safety. Full control concept includes not only the silo itself, but also the connected upstream and downstream equipment. Silo filling equipment could be any kind of pneumatic or mechanical conveyor like bucket elevator, dilute or dense phase pneumatic conveying system, bulk tanker truck etc. By processing the signals coming from several sensors, silo control system prevents overfilling, overpressurizing and underpressurizing of the silo. Health of critical components are monitored continuously. A self testing system is operated periodically and before each filling operation.
Silo Filling Control System For Bulk Truck Filled Silos
Silos that are filled by bulk trucks (also known as road tankers) have several equipment to be controlled for safe and efficient silo loading. Automatic filling control system has a PLC controlled electrical panel that has full control over silo equipment. Silo top jet filter, silo inlet pinch valve, level sensors, pressure sensors and other components are connected to control panel. The power of air compressor of bulk solid tanker truck is supplied by built in power supply plug. Silo filling control system checks silo before filling for safety, controls the power sent to bulk truck, checks the product level, silo inner pressure during silo filling. System both controls the equipment and protects the silo from overfilling and over pressure.
Read More: How It Works ? Automatic Filling Control System For Bulk Truck Filled Silos
Silo Filling Control System For Silos Filled By Dense or Dilute Phase Pneumatic Conveying Systems
Pneumatic conveying systems that fill silos in industrial plants generally have their own electrical controls with SCADA, DCS or similar systems. Implementing new silo equipment or several safety devices may require substantial effort. Depending on mechanical and electrical configuration of pneumatic conveying system, a local control panel handling all silo functions might be much more convenient. Polimak silo filling control system panels have the capability of connecting to DCS or SCADA units. Start, stop, level, alarm and pressure signals can easily be transmitted between both units, providing cost efficient and practical way of implementation.
Read More: How It Works ? Silo Filling Control For Pneumatic Conveying Systems
Silo Filling Control System For Silos Filled By Mechanical Conveyors.
When silos are filled by mechanical conveyors, there is no pressure build up in silo. Though the system becomes simpler. Mechanical conveying systems such as bucket elevators and screw conveyors that fill silos in industrial plants generally have their own electrical controls with SCADA, DCS or similar systems. Implementing new silo equipment or several safety devices may require substantial effort. Depending on mechanical and electrical configuration of conveying system, a local control panel handling all silo functions might be much more convenient. Polimak silo filling control system panels have the capability of connecting to DCS or SCADA units. Start, stop, level and alarm signals can easily be transmitted between both units, providing cost efficient and practical way of implementation.
Read More: How It Works ? Silo Filling Control For Mechanical Conveying Systems
Silo Discharge Control System
Bulk material silos have several types of discharge equipment such as screw feeders, rotary valves, butterfly valves, slide gate valves, chain conveyors, bulk truck loading bellows and pneumatic conveying systems. Depending on application, there are wide range of receiving points like bins, processing lines, weighing and batching systems, trucks, mixers etc. Silo discharge control systems provide full control over silo discharging equipment for efficient handling.
Silo Safety and Silo Protection System
When filling and discharging bulk solids storage silos, several risks that may arise such as overfilling, overpressure and combustable dust explosion. By processing the signals coming from several sensors and taking necessary safety measures, silo control system automatically protects the silo from these risks. Health of critical components are monitored continuously and plant operators are warned if there exist any malfunctuining equipment. System provides a complete silo protection solution for safety of silo, workers and plant.
Some of the most frequent risks during powder handling in silos and relevant protection systems are as follows:
– Silo overpressure protection
– Silo underpressure protection
– Silo overfilling protection
– Explosion protection for combustable dusts
– Operator safety warning system for adverse weather conditions
Silo Equipment Health Monitoring System
The ability to operate a reliable system requires early and continuous testing from the system level down to the components that make up the system and the ability to deal with failure and malfunction. Bulk solids silos are storage vessels with several equipment running together to ensure safe and dependable raw material storage. Silo Equipment Health Monitoring System is a condition monitoring system that detects the failures of equipment installed on storage silos. Consequently it prevents any damages or losses due to malfunctioning equipment.
Condition monitoring of following equipment is available depending on application and expected safety level:
– Pressure relief valve condition monitoring
– Jet filter (dust collector) condition monitoring
– Pinch valve condition monitoring
– Process air supply monitoring
– Motor vibration monitoring
Industrial IOT Based Silo Level Monitoring and Inventory System
Silo level monitoring system is developed specifically for tracing the level or weight of bulk solids in storage silos and providing meaningful insights to plant operators for managing raw material storage efficiently. Amount of powdered material inside a silo could be measured by using level sensors and loadcells to provide level and weight information respectively. These sensors are connected to Polimak-Politrace inventory monitoring platform on the cloud. Sensor values are sent through industrial Iot gateways with increased security. Using the web based user interface, users can keep an eye on their inventories at all times locally and globally.
Depending on the application and handled material, followig data are available for silo monitoring:
– Name of the stored bulk material
– Silo filling level
– Silo Filling and discharging rate
– Filling and discharging dates
– Name of involved operators
– Alarms whenever certain thresholds are reached (high level, low level, overpressure etc.)
– Maps showing geographic location of monitored silos with storage levels
Industries Served
Our bulk solids handling solutions have assisted many large and small companies within a variety of industries. Some of the bulk materials we have been working with include: cement, calcium carbonate, ash, plastic pellets, lime, sand, paints and pigments, gypsum, carbon black, pvc, coatings, fly ash, coal, coal dust, flour, seed, chickpea, rubber, carbon black, bean, sesame, almond, grain cereals, chestnut, coffee grain, coffee powder, sugar, corn, starch, salt, spice, glass powder, marble powder, sawdust pet food, ingredients and extracts, dairy products and industrial products.