Fly Ash

Guys I am looking for a sensor with relay contacts that will detect fly ash at the bottom of a chute. Truck pulls in under chute and emptys silo until fly ash backs up to sensor in chute thus closing silo. Any suggestions?

thanks

Hazey

Use a capacitive sensor. Sure it will work

I have had very good results with this on a powder conveyer surge hopper. We put it in and never touched it after startup even with density changes of material.

http://www.au.endress.com/

"Soliphant M is a robust level limit switch for use in silos containing fine-grained or powdery solids even with a low bulk density. The various designs mean the device has a wide range of applications. Many certificates are available for use in dust or gas incendive hazard areas. FTM50 compact design for installation in any direction. A wide range of applications thanks to various variations; e.g. polished short fork with stainless steel housing (F15) and Tri-Clamp; coated standard fork with aluminium housing (F17) and flange; standard fork with 280 °C (540 °F) rating and aluminium housing (F13) Typical applications: cereals, flour, cocoa, sugar, animal feed, detergents, dye powder, chalk, gypsum, cement, sand, plastic granules, fly ash"

Most reputable instrumentation companies make some kind of vibrating fork level switches.

They have tunable sensitivity and are pretty resistant to accumulations and/or bridging.

I've used Mobrey Squing and Omart Vegas version (cant remember its name) in fine powder (pharma) applications doing pretty much exactly they same thing as you have mentioned.

They worked very well as far as I know.

chud said:

Use a capacitive sensor. Sure it will work

Click to expand...

I'll second that, we use Drexelbrook on flyash and many other bulk materials. They work extremely well.

Brian.

I have a client that dumps silos pretty much every day. At this time they're manually monitoring the dumps.

I'm positive that there's a slc 5/04 within 25 feet of the main silo.

When I meet with them tomorrow I'll bring this up. It might be something they'd be interested in.


What are the benefits of using a sensor device instead of visual monitoring? (I'd need to mention the benefits of this)..

Russ said:

I have a client that dumps silos pretty much every day. At this time they're manually monitoring the dumps.

I'm positive that there's a slc 5/04 within 25 feet of the main silo.

When I meet with them tomorrow I'll bring this up. It might be something they'd be interested in.


What are the benefits of using a sensor device instead of visual monitoring? (I'd need to mention the benefits of this)..

Click to expand...

A properly installed sensor, not like a human, doesn't get distracted or take breaks at the wrong time, can't ignore an SOP, the list goes on. Automation is the key to consistency of product. Of course periodic testing of any automatic system is a good policy even with very reliable devices.