Mineral processing plant crushing and griding automation

That's generally the idea .....
However, the origin of automation as a rule comes from either client or consultant, or even a process engineer for a specific process.

There is also working for a panel builder / system builder as we used to call them. So instead of having a MCC {motor control centre} with just push button controls, we build MMC's with a PLC to give us automatic control over motor drives.

As for software and logic program, is it not a good idea to write down how this particular machine is going to work by way of Functional Description. You have mentioned what appears to be a rock crushing plant. Maybe the belt conveyors would start up in sequence with the crusher starting first.

The days of writing a logic program from a blank sheet of paper are long over, but the 'genius' part of a Control Engineer is to code a logic program into something workable. I've really only written a start sequence algorithm once. Another project with belt conveyors would have almost the same sequence with slight differences.

The greatest satisfaction of course is commisioning a machine and seeing it perform exactly as you have described in the Functional Description.
 
That's generally the idea .....
However, the origin of automation as a rule comes from either client or consultant, or even a process engineer for a specific process.

There is also working for a panel builder / system builder as we used to call them. So instead of having a MCC {motor control centre} with just push button controls, we build MMC's with a PLC to give us automatic control over motor drives.

As for software and logic program, is it not a good idea to write down how this particular machine is going to work by way of Functional Description. You have mentioned what appears to be a rock crushing plant. Maybe the belt conveyors would start up in sequence with the crusher starting first.

The days of writing a logic program from a blank sheet of paper are long over, but the 'genius' part of a Control Engineer is to code a logic program into something workable. I've really only written a start sequence algorithm once. Another project with belt conveyors would have almost the same sequence with slight differences.

The greatest satisfaction of course is commisioning a machine and seeing it perform exactly as you have described in the Functional Description.
Really good,our team could provide the process flow(crushing/griding), equipment list, equipment layout and process control requirements.Can you provide the plant automation scheme(including selection of automatic instruments and meters,needs of the materials,hardware&software-you may find other engineer to complete the task) and quotation for this automation project.
Kevin Wang
[email protected]
 
What I normally do, is first make a good functional specification (what must the machine do and how) together with a process technologist that knows the product well and knows what has to be done with it and when.
This must be in normal plain language, without automation-technical stuff that the process technologist doesn't understand.
Only if you both agree on this specification, you take the next step and make with the functional specification (this is automation technical and the process technologist doesn't understand this).
Here are the state machines/SFCs and control strategies.

A good solution for this is the ISA-S88 standard for process control.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISA-88
 
What I normally do, is first make a good functional specification (what must the machine do and how) together with a process technologist that knows the product well and knows what has to be done with it and when.
This must be in normal plain language, without automation-technical stuff that the process technologist doesn't understand.
Only if you both agree on this specification, you take the next step and make with the functional specification (this is automation technical and the process technologist doesn't understand this).
Here are the state machines/SFCs and control strategies.

A good solution for this is the ISA-S88 standard for process control.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISA-88
Thanks for reply me.I am agreed with your points,and first we will try to develop a small system (Vibration Monitoring System - VMS) to our client to show the power of automation for mineral process.It is a Feature enhancement project,could you join the project to finish the task?
Project requirements
Vibration Monitoring System (VMS) shall acquire data related to the mechanical health of the HT motors; perform analysis, display vibration and other data for the motors during all regimes of operation. There shall be hardwired data exchange
from VMS to PLC for display, trending in HMI (as applicable), alarming and interlocking / protection. Local Annunciation shall be available if VMS data crosses alarm limit values.
The system shall have the following sub systems,
-Field Transducers
-Data acquisition, condition management
-On line Machinery Protection and Monitoring
-Data Interface with PLC
The system shall be complete with sensors, monitors, relay modules, networking hardware, dual redundant power supplies, special cables etc. The system shall have feature to bypass a relay contact in the event of sensors failure. Sensors shall be dust proof & weather proof rated to IP-65 and suitable for work in harsh environment. Transducer data Interface and the machine monitoring & protection subsystem shall be a complete programmable on-line real time system. It shall be capable of collecting data from machine transducers and shall provide it to PLC Control System to assess machine condition.Interface with PLC shall be in the form of isolated 4-20 mA DC analog signal and potential free contacts. System mounting racks shall be furnished to house monitor modules, indicating/display units, power supplies, test and calibration equipment. Grouping of modules in racks shall be equipment wise. The mounting racks shall be fully factory wired.
The front of each mounting rack shall house a monitor test-switch, test condition indicating lamp and power on indication lamp. Sensors and monitors shall be fully compliant to API.

Any question you may contact with me.
Kevin Wang
[email protected]
 
Dear Kevin,
This is a technical specification. That is the main mistake many people make.
The customer is often not technical, for him you must write a functional specification in plain language that (almost) everybody without technical knowledge can understand.
When both parties agree on the functional specification (after changing after discussions) you translate the functional specification into the technical specification (what you sent in your previous message).
This is how things go when the customer is not technically skilled.
But maybe he is, and can read your specification. If he/she agrees on that you can start implementing the project if all is clear to both parties and agreed upon.
 
Dear Kevin,
This is a technical specification. That is the main mistake many people make.
The customer is often not technical, for him you must write a functional specification in plain language that (almost) everybody without technical knowledge can understand.
When both parties agree on the functional specification (after changing after discussions) you translate the functional specification into the technical specification (what you sent in your previous message).
This is how things go when the customer is not technically skilled.
But maybe he is, and can read your specification. If he/she agrees on that you can start implementing the project if all is clear to both parties and agreed upon.
Thanks for your reply.
This project Vibration Monitoring System (VMS) is developed based on the requirement of on-line vibration monitoring of process equipment in a concentrator, which monitors the whole process of equipment running vibration state, so that users can grasp the health status of equipment at any time, and arrange maintenance or overhaul in advance according to the diagnosis results of fault trend prediction expert database, thus reducing the losses caused by downtime, thus realizing the equipment maintenance from general periodic maintenance to predictive maintenance mode based on the health status of each equipment, and finally realizing the reduction of operation cost and the improvement of economic benefits of concentrator.

Vibration monitoring of process equipments:
-crusher,mill,screen,feeder,conveyer,pump
Vibration Monitoring System composition:
- Gearbox/Reducer from the equipment → Vibration Sensor → Data acquisition equipment → Software
Functional specification:
- Vibration acceleration data acquisition and storage
- Calculation and extraction of eigenvalues such as maximum amplitude, effective value and standard deviation, kurtosis and peak-to-peak value of vibration in time domain
- Frequency domain power spectrum, cepstrum, envelope demodulation, spectrum refinement and wavelet analysis
- Perform remote alarm function according to the threshold set by the user
Characteristics and advantages:
- The expansion of channel number is strong, and the number of slave terminals can be increased according to the demand of measuring points to achieve the purpose of expanding the number of channels.
- Strict synchronization of data acquisition, by sharing the sampling clock of the master terminal to the slave terminals and triggering signal routing through the master terminal, the synchronous sampling of the slave terminals is strictly controlled to avoid phase errors.
- High sampling rate, each channel has a sampling rate of 51.2 kHz (up to 102.4 kHz) to ensure the integrity of vibration and shock data acquisition.
- Edge computing capability, each terminal has onboard FPGA resources, which can perform real-time online data processing and analysis locally and feed back the results to the remote monitoring station, which can effectively guarantee the real-time performance of data processing and reduce the network load at the same time.
- Hardware with high reliability, the acquisition hardware has the working temperature range of -40℃-70℃, and the anti-shock capability is 30g(11 ms half sine, IEC 60068-2-27) and anti-vibration capability is 5 grms(10 Hz to 500 Hz, IEC 60068-2-64)
 
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