Mersen mould station automation improves quality and yield 06 October 2010
Thermal insulation supplier Mersen's site at Eurocentral, Scotland, is now running a new wet moulding station and effluent treatment plant that now automates a manual manufacturing process.
Mersen Scotland Holytown, which serves the electronics, aerospace and automotive industries, among others, installed a Burkert control system and says it has successfully improved quality, yield and output volumes.
Burkert provided the complete process control systems, including its level and flow instruments, as well as valves and the control panel, which now houses Burkert's AirLine 8644 system, integrating solenoid valves with I/O from the PLCs.
In brief detail, the moulding station comprises large mixing tanks where carbon, water and resin are mixed under recipe control, before being pumped to the vacuum mould tank for profile forming. Slurry is drawn down and pumped to vacuum tanks for discharge to the integrated treatment plant.
Among other interesting features, the plant is a study in level sensing technologies. Burkert 8110 vibrating level switches provide high and low level monitoring in the mould and resin mix tanks; its 8175 ultrasonic level transmitters look after the mix tanks and vessels linked to the pump sets' and type 8185 guided microwave level transmitters monitor the vacuum tanks.
As for flow monitoring, Burkert's Inline 8035 flow transmitters manage batch control of water to the resin mix tanks, while two 8045 electromagnetic flow transmitters monitor the slurry rate and control slurry pump speed – also monitoring effluent discharge to the water treatment plant.
Automation of the mould plant is via Allen Bradley PLC, with twin HMIs and Burkert's 8644 Airline process actuation control system, said to save around 40% of conventional system costs, through its integrated digital I/O, solenoid pilot valve outputs, analogue I/O and fieldbus connectivity.
Mersen went for Burkert actuated butterfly valves to control mains water supply to the resin mix tanks, and discharge from the mould tanks to the vacuum tanks. It also chose T-ported ball valves for the drain function on the mix tanks, and Type 330 solenoid valves to control Teepol wetting agent dosing, while Burkert's full bore, actuated ball valves control mains water to the effluent treatment plant.
Brian Tinham
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