South African electrical, control and instrumentation specialist, Iritron has been offering modular smart thyristor drives to the local and international mining, minerals and metals market for the past couple of years, including the latest new leading innovations in temperature control technology. “These drives combined with advanced proportional-integral-derivative (PID) control will change the way large industries manage their heating processes, reducing costs and extending equipment lifespan,” notes Iritron business development head, Neels van der Walt.
PID control offer superior temperature control compared to on-off systems by reducing temperature fluctuations and improving overall system stability and efficiency. This is achieved through a combination of proportional, integral and derivative control actions, allowing for more precise and consistent temperature control.
“PID control holds a number of benefits to the end user, including precise temperature control, stability, adaptability and energy efficiency,” adds Van der Walt. “By combining these benefits, end users will realise stable and consistent temperature, even in the presence of process disturbances or changes in the system, leading to reduced deviations that prevent overshoot and undershoot, as well as longer lifespans for equipment as a result of reduced thermal stress,” he highlights.
PID controllers can also respond quickly to changes in the process, bringing the temperature back to the setpoint more efficiently, he continues. Building on these advantages, modular smart thyristor drives enable the practical implementation of PID temperature control in industrial heating. These drives use burst firing, a method that switches thyristors on and off in complete AC cycles to control power delivery efficiently while reducing harmonics and electromagnetic interference.
This contrasts with wave chopping techniques which can introduce harmful harmonics. “In transformers, harmonic currents cause increased eddy current losses in the transformer’s core and windings, leading to higher temperatures and energy losses,” he explains.
Modern smart thyristor drives also feature zero-voltage switching, which further reduces electromagnetic interference, improving overall system reliability. “Their modular design offers flexible configuration options through software. Some controllers can maintain a constant voltage, current or power output despite fluctuations in the input voltage or load characteristics,” Van der Walt notes.
“This adaptability ensures consistent energy delivery and optimal temperature control.”
Another significant advancement is the integration of digital communication capabilities. Leading thyristor drives provide real-time diagnostic data including element health, load failures, power consumption, voltage, current and power factor. It also supports standard industrial interfaces such as Modbus TCP, Profinet and DeviceNet, among others.
Perhaps most notably, smart thyristor drives enable dynamic or predictive load balancing across heating zones or processes. By communicating digitally with each other, these drives distribute power to different loads in such a way that stable power consumption is achieved, eliminating peak demand spikes. “This technology can lead to huge savings in maximum demand charges for users,” adds Van der Walt.
“As modern manufacturing and mining industries increasingly focus on energy efficiency and process optimisation for the purposes of sustainability and carbon reduction, the adoption of modular smart thyristor drives combined with PID control represents a significant step forward and will make a real positive impact,” he concludes.
| Tel: | +27 12 349 2919 |
| Email: | [email protected] |
| www: | www.iritron.co.za |
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