In an interesting year when Easter comes early, the moon has caused some confusion to Exhibition organisers in Germany, with Sensor + Test scheduled in Nurnberg, clashing with the Automotive Testing Exhibition at the ICS International Congress Centre in Stuttgart, last week. Nevertheless the shows report good visitor numbers, with Sensor + Test getting 7900 trade visitors to the 562 exhibitor stands. This must have been quite a problem for such firms as HBM, who regularly exhibit with large stands at both shows. At Sensor + Test, their latest developments in fibre-optic strain gauge systems were on show, which have interesting potential applications in the power industry, and other such hazardous areas. HBM also showed a more conventional strain gauge based load cell, which is guaranteed to operate for 3 years in food industry wash-down and even steam cleaned areas, being rated at IP69K (Link). Their stand featured a video showing such a steam pressure washer attack on their load cell, to show they mean it. A more comprehensive report on the exhibition will follow later. Read the rest of this entry »

There has been an interesting press release covering various of the current development projects at Pepperl + Fuchs, some of which were demonstrated as part of a future technologies section on the Pepperl+Fuchs stand at INTERKAMA+ 2008 in Hanover (Link). One development is DART, which stands for Dynamic Arc Recognition and Termination, and describes a technology which P+F quote “will soon make the sophisticated and costly installation techniques presently needed for hazardous areas a matter of the past”. DART detects the characteristic voltage change caused by the start of a spark, and quickly turns off the power to the circuit before the spark temperature rises sufficiently to cause ignition. In this way it is maybe best described as actively managed intrinsic safety, shutting the gate before the arc escapes. P+F quote that it will allow higher power field instruments - such as magnetic valve controls, magnetic flowmeters, scales, analysis and alarm devices, HMI terminals and even complete PCs - to be used inside the Ex-Zone without requiring increased safety measures. Read the rest of this entry »

Condition-based machine or asset monitoring is the most interesting area of business development, giving process industry suppliers a real quandary. For example, with the vibration measurement sensors, out of balance monitors, seal monitoring and axial shift monitoring, do the process control systems expand to take these sensors onto the fieldbus? The DCS is collecting data about the condition of plant equipment provided by the process valves, flowmeters, pressure sensors, and will continue to do this, so there is a distinct part of plant asset monitoring coming through that route. But why send the rest of the data down that same route, to the DCS operators, who probably refer it on to the engineering console anyway. Read the rest of this entry »

Training and learning about the ever faster developing technologies used in the process industry is becoming even more important: not just because the people from the baby boom after WW2 are all retiring and taking their experience out of the industry, but because companies are investing in new technologies that will improve plant profitability. Competitive pressures and the same profit drive have also reduced the emphasis given to training and apprenticeship schemes. Read the rest of this entry »

The UK Foodex - Meatex exhibition produced a number of food industry related stories and product launches last week. At number 10 of our Top Ten stories, Watson-Marlow have discovered that their 840 Series peristaltic pump is really effective at pumping egg yolks - without damaging them, a really important factor when making the extra-thick omelettes that accompany high quality sushi. Apparently Japanese tests have shown an undamaged egg yolk pass rate of 70%, much better than the 20% achieved by the previous pump (1). Read the rest of this entry »