In a coal-fired power plant, the coal is transported from the yard to the silos on a conveyor system.
The process of dumping coal from the conveyed buckets into the silo creates a lot of dust.
One Lesman power plant customer had been using laser transmitters to detect the level of coal in their silos. But since the laser didn’t discriminate between the dust and the true level of the coal, they were experiencing false high levels, which forced unnecessary process shutdowns. They’d then have to override the system to get it back online.
Eager to end their shutdown issues, the customer considered switching to load cells, which are very accurate at measuring volume, but very costly. They would have needed to cut all the steel support members on their coal tanks, at a cost of nearly $100,000 per tank.
The customer agreed to put a Siemens LR560 radar unit on trial, and it worked flawlessly right away, providing true level readings regardless of the dusty environment.
At a cost of only $3,300 per silo, the customer was able to save roughly $750,000 and a significant amount of downtime for accurate level readings and the end of their forced shutdown issues.
For more information about the SITRANS LR560, visit our website or give us a call. We are happy to help!
800-953-7626
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Lesman is the premiere stocking representative for process valving, controls, and measurement instrumentation, serving customers in Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Eastern Missouri, Eastern Iowa, and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
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