The advantages of CTP smart control panels
Preventive maintenance
Get useful information for planning the maintenance of the system
Efficiency
Receive suggestions to correct the equipement operation and set new parameters to optimize LCC costs (in case of bag filters)
Reliability
Our customers can rely on our team of engineers to help them monitor the operation of the system
Warning
Prompt advise in case of unusual behaviour or wrong operation of filter and related equipement
Industry 4.0 means the fourth technological revolution in the industrial field
The impacts on the manufacturing world are evident, but what happens when the concept of industry 4.0 s applied to “machines” such as bag filters?
When speaking of industry 4.0, most people think in general to digital technologies such as Additive Manufacturing (3D prints), Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data, Cloud Computing and Cloud Manufacturing, Robotics, Advanced Automation and Augmented Reality.
The benefits of all the above technologies are clear for all those companies that adopt it as “production model”; the path from the idea to the reality becomes very fast. Starting from simulation to the real product, through the collection and analysis of a big amount of information it is possible to manage the production cycle through “Learning Machine” processes, involving also IoT technologies (Internet of Things). In this way, the changes that govern the field of action of each company are immediately anticipated and intercepted.
In this context, the concept of industry 4.0 takes on many opportunities, opens new horizons giving to a company the opportunity to build a new vison that becomes innovative for the sector.
Figure 1: Improves the efficiency of your Air Pollution Control (APC) System by significantly reducing physical survey time, costly operations and unforeseen shutdowns.
Monitoring, assistance and adaptation.
Since some years now, most of CTP solutions have been equipped with devices able to perform a “limited” remote control and monitoring systems. These systems allow the operators onsite to check the operating parameters, verify the alerts and activate some corrective actions directly from the “control room”. With the application of the industry 4.0 concept, such devices becomes “Smart objects”, very similar to those used today in everyday life and if connected to a network or to the web, they can be considered in the group of the “Internet of Things” (IoT-ready). Such devices can be shortly defined intelligent, but it is not about a real intelligence: they rather act as we expect an expert operator should do, according to the implemented software. The application of this concept opens wide horizons of opportunity for the Customer. If applied, the Customer can get basically assured the assistance of the CTP engineering advisory support team. This last one will be able to connect remotely from the headquarters in Italy to provide support and suggest corrective actions to overcome unexpected problem or provide assistance for predictive maintenance.
But this is just the beginning.
Are they the only benefits introduced by the application of industry 4.0 concepts?
The application of IoT technologies make available a lot of real time information that in the past were partially accessible only through test equipment installed in labs or through test rigs; in such case we are speaking about Big Data, another digital technology included in the industry 4.0 concept.
Smart control panels, provided with the transmission of the most significative parameters in remote can be easily installed on bag filters; the set of data exchanged are used for a continuous update of the control software, improving our know how and, last but not least, improving customer care assistance as well.
For the Customer the advantages of a complete system are based on the possibility to easily follow the “life” of the filter: this is fundamental for an efficient management of the filter itself, but in general for every equipment as well. This activity is generally time and resources consuming for the owner of the installation and that’s why today this recommended practice, is normally done for the main equipment only.
If an automatic system is adopted for all the bag filters installed, the life of each equipment can be easily monitored so that the customer is able to
– Optimise maintenance costs
– Optimize energy consumption
– Get longer life-time of bags
– Keep under control efficiently the emissions levels
The capability of the automatic control and monitoring system will be proportional to the size and the duty of the filter; simple device for nuisance filters, more complex for process filters.
CTP strongly feels that the advantages of the most innovative features of an up-do-date filter design cannot be deeply exploited without a device able to close the gap between a “standard” filter, skilled to reach an acceptable emission control efficiency, and a “smart” filter capable to adapt according to the working conditions, such as: the fluctuation of the flow gas, the dust load, etc. at low operating cost as well.
CTP believes in applications increasingly smart and digital (IoT) that make our solutions capable to monitor the industrial processes, including our WHR system, and prevent its changes according to the operating conditions and adapting the control strategy. Today several customers choose increasingly smart and digital systems that can adapt according to external changes and no longer suffer them.
Thanks to the solid partnership between CTP and CTN and the close collaboration with our customers, we believe that soon this type of applications will spread and lead the changes. We are ready and you?
Keyword: “evolution”
The operation management of a bag filter concerns mostly the bags cleaning; the controlled parameters is basically the cleaning cycle, that is how many times a bag is cleaned in one hour, and the pressure of the compressed air used for the cleaning. Sometimes, filers are also equipped with OFF LINE cleaning; in such case also dampers control is added to the controller.
Conventional control devices allow the control of the cleaning frequency only, calculated basing on the bags clogging grade, detected measuring the bags pressure drop. The pressure of the compressed air is set during the commissioning according to a minimum value, suitable to keep under control the air consumption, assure a good efficiency of the cleaning and preserve bags against mechanical stress
Conventional control devices allow a single tuning of all parameters; the tuning is optimised according to a standard method normally suitable for all the average operating condition that the filter must bear according to the design data.
If a bag filter controller becomes a “Smart Object”, it can act as an expert operator, monitoring the filter behaviour 24 hours a day, changing the cleaning system settings adapting the filter operation to the real working conditions.
Why the filter should be able to adapt? Because industrial processes are often affected by many different factors influencing the characteristics of the gas stream treated by the filter. In the frame of an energy efficiency improvement of the systems and operating cost control, a modern management of a filter should be able to quickly adapt filter’s behaviour in case of expected and unexpected operating conditions, without forgetting, of course, that the main duty of a bag filter is to keep dust emissions below the allowed limits.
The abatement efficiency of a bag filter is in any case no more an issue today for the most part of the cases and the respect of the emission limits is guaranteed; starting form this, the new challenge is the reduction of the operating costs, including maintenance costs, energy cost for compressed air and fan. Moreover, there are also hidden costs impacting rather on the community than directly on the owner: they are related to the environment in general. In facts, also the production of greenhouse gas (e.g. CO2) generated to produce the electrical energy used for operating a filter is a factor that today must be considered, because energy efficiency is part of the environmental responsibility of everyone.
The series of smart control panels developed by CTP go in this direction; it allows to optimise the Fabric filter operation, starting from the smaller to the bigger one, according to the above feeling.
Our smart panels can adopt the best control strategy according to a proprietary self-learning software, monitoring the filter operation through suitable sensors installed on the filter. This allows to optimise bags life and energy consumption according to the process, and its fluctuation, upstream the filter.
Figure 2: CTP smart control panel close the gap between a “normal” filter, skilled to reach an acceptable emission control efficiency, and a “smart” filter capable to do it adapting to the working conditions.