New national regulations, introduced to clean up pollution and to reduce the visual impact of industrial plants on the landscape, required a coal fired power plant in the USA to upgrade to enable conformance. The following needed to be added:
* Catalytic reduction system to lower nitrous oxide emissions.
* Dry scrubber for capturing sulphur dioxide.
* A baghouse (enclosed coal delivery bunker) to accept deliveries of coal and eliminate particulate emissions when coal is tipped out of the wagons.
Adding oxygen and carbon monoxide measurements into the control system would reduce pollution and the improved combustion efficiency would reduce fuel consumption and lower operating costs. New gas analysers were therefore required to integrate with the Allen Bradley PLC used to control the boiler. Acromag, a supplier of signal conditioners and isolators, was approached to supply a device to read the signals from the analysers and connect them to the PLC.
Acromag supplied two modules (961EN-6006 for analog signals, 983EN-6012 for digital signals) with an Ethernet IP protocol interface for direct connection with the PLC. Using these remote I/O modules, the site engineers were easily able to integrate the gas analyser readings and alarms into the control system. As part of the process, Acromag remote I/O modules were also used to connect the new weather station readings for data-logging and control purposes.
EtherCAT interoperability removes industrial networking barriers
Fieldbus & Industrial Networking
Selecting the right communication technology is one of the most important decisions engineers make, and interoperability helps with that decision. Key development tools and standards ensure interoperability among many EtherCAT devices and manufacturers.
Read more...Condition monitoring to go Turck Banner Southern Africa
Fieldbus & Industrial Networking
Anyone who wants to efficiently monitor the climate in control cabinets will find a comprehensive range of control cabinet monitors for the DIN rail in Turck Banner’s cabinet condition monitoring family.
Read more...Affordable building management system product range
Fieldbus & Industrial Networking
Schneider Electric has unveiled its EasyLogic Building Management System range, designed for basic building architectures, to the local marketplace. This is a complete and cost-effective range of field controllers and sensors that are both easy to install and scalable.
Read more...Flexible EtherCAT communication interface for DALI-2 Beckhoff Automation
Fieldbus & Industrial Networking
The EL6821 EtherCAT Terminal from Beckhoff allows up to 64 DALI/DALI-2 slaves and 64 DALI-2 input devices to be connected. The TwinCAT 3 System Manager makes it easy to configure and parameterise DALI devices flexibly.
Read more...EtherCAT-based control technology for building automation Beckhoff Automation
Fieldbus & Industrial Networking
Modern non-residential buildings place many high demands on building automation. This can be optimally implemented with EtherCAT-based control technology from Beckhoff, which provides an efficient central automation architecture thanks to ultra-fast data communication.
Read more...PC-based control for university studies Beckhoff Automation
Fieldbus & Industrial Networking
The IDEA box developed at Heilbronn University of Applied Sciences is designed to introduce students to the topic of Industry 4.0 in a simple and practical way. At the core of the corresponding demo case is PC-based control from Beckhoff.
Read more...A new standard in high-speed Ethernet communication
Fieldbus & Industrial Networking
The TXMC897 module from TEWS Technologies supports a range of Ethernet standards and speeds, making it suitable for diverse applications, including the defence, industrial, and IIoT markets.
Read more...Data-driven battery production Turck Banner Southern Africa
Fieldbus & Industrial Networking
The availability of high-performance batteries at moderate prices is one of the most important factors for the success of electromobility. As a long-standing automation partner to the automotive industry, Turck Banner supports the major battery manufacturers with its know-how.
Read more...Bring critical temperature data to your condition monitoring system Turck Banner Southern Africa
Fieldbus & Industrial Networking
Data conversion just got easier. Turck Banner converters are compact, simple add-ons that seamlessly fit into your factory applications. You can take various types of signals such as discrete, analogue and many others, and convert them to protocols like IO-link, PICK-IQ, PWM/PFM, and Modbus.
Read more...Case History 190: Measurement problem ruins level control. Michael Brown Control Engineering
Editor's Choice Fieldbus & Industrial Networking
The widely held belief in many plants that tuning will solve all base layer control problems is completely fallacious. Bad tuning is generally not the main reason for loops to perform badly. It is important when performing optimisation that all elements in a loop are considered, in addition to the control strategy, before even thinking of tuning.
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