A challenging industrial application involving the handling and dispensing of bitumen required a sophisticated control and monitoring system. The project’s success depended on maintaining the medium’s temperature within a strict range to ensure it remained in a liquid state throughout the process. This necessitated a solution capable of managing numerous distributed sensors and controlling various final elements like heaters and pumps based on complex conditional logic. The MultiCon CMC series was selected to provide an integrated solution for control, data acquisition, and visualisation in a single, compact device.
- Application: Automated control of a bitumen filling and dosing system.
- Challenge: Bitumen’s properties change drastically with temperature; it is solid when cold and becomes a liquid with variable density at high temperatures, requiring precise thermal management to prevent blockages and ensure process safety.
- Requirements: Centralised monitoring of multiple temperature, pressure, and flow sensors distributed across tanks, pipelines, and valves. The system needed to execute conditional logic to control heaters and pumps, ensuring all process parameters were met before initiating any action.
- Solution: A MultiCon CMC series multichannel controller and data recorder equipped with a high density of analogue inputs, pulse inputs, and solid-state relay (SSR) outputs.
Managing bitumen in a production environment presents significant challenges due to its unique physical properties. In its cold state, it is as hard as asphalt, but for it to be pumped and dosed accurately, it must be heated to a high temperature to become a liquid. This transition, however, introduces process variables, such as changes in density, that must be carefully managed. A critical requirement for a bitumen filling application was the implementation of a control system that could continuously monitor all process parameters, specifically temperature, pressure, and flow, before any pump could be safely started. Failure to maintain the correct temperature in all parts of the installation, including storage tanks, pipelines, and valves, could lead to the bitumen solidifying, causing blockages, equipment damage, and significant downtime.
To meet these demanding requirements, a centralised control and data acquisition strategy was deployed using a single MultiCon CMC series device. This compact, panel-mounted controller was configured with a specific set of I/O modules to interface with all the necessary field instrumentation. Sixteen 4-20 mA current inputs were used to connect the numerous temperature and pressure transmitters located at key points throughout the installation. For monitoring the dosing process itself, two pulse inputs were utilized to read the signals from the flowmeters. To provide the necessary control, eight solid-state relay (SSR) outputs were used to switch the power to the various heaters and pumps in the system.
This single device effectively acts as a combined controller, recorder, and HMI. It analyses all incoming sensor data in real-time, using its powerful internal logic capabilities to verify that all technological conditions are met. The controller’s ninety available logical channels allow for the creation of sophisticated conditional sequences. For instance, the system ensures heaters are active to maintain the target temperature throughout the process lines, and only when every sensor reading is within its predefined limits are the pumps activated. This interlocked control scheme is fundamental to the safety and reliability of the operation. All process data, alarms, and triggered events are logged to the device’s 4 GB internal memory for quality control and process analysis. Furthermore, the integrated colour touchscreen provides operators with clear process visualisation and a user-friendly interface for managing the system, consolidating all control and monitoring functions into one accessible point.
MultiCon CMC-141 Controller
- Part No: CMC-141-PS32/ETU/FT2/I16/S8-1B1
- MultiCon Type: CMC-141 panel mount, 5.7 inch display, 72 inputs max
- Power Supply (Slot P): 19-50V DC / 16-35V AC (PS32)
- Digital Coms (Slot D): USB Host, Ethernet (ETU)
- Inputs / Outputs (Slot C): 2 x pulse input (flowmeters/ratemeters) + 2 x current input (FT2)
- Inputs / Outputs (Slot B): 16 x current input (I16)
- Inputs / Outputs (Slot A): 8 x SSR output (S8)
- Options: front USB Host (B1)