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With the lowest rainfall of all continents (excluding Antarctica), Australia is the world's driest continent. Drought is a regular occurrence and we must increasingly look for innovative ways to effectively manage this ever-decreasing scarce resource. Instrumentation to measure, control and manage water plays a critical role in this process. Endress+Hauser have a range of sophisticated instruments that are widely used in plants and facilities across the country.
Rugged flowmeter withstands harsh conditions
In water and wastewater treatment plants, the measurement and control of the various processes determines the quality of the water we drink, recycle or discharge into the sea. One critical instrument is the electromagnetic flowmeter (magmeter) which is now commonly used to measure instantaneous and cumulative water flow in water and wastewater treatment plants.
The innovative Promag family from Endress+Hauser offers, at no additional cost, features and benefits not available from most other makers. Instrumentation installed at water treatment plants, especially along Australia's coast, often faces extremely harsh environmental conditions. Plastic has a tendency to crack unlike the diecast powder-coated aluminium transmitter housings on the Endress+Hauser magmeters. These IP67 rated housings come as standard on the Promag range and ensure protection against dust and moisture. In some treatment plants, magmeters are installed in sumps and in such cases, a model with a suitably high ingress protection rating will be the logical choice. The Endress+Hauser IP68 specified flowmeter models come with the sensor cable fitted, terminated and potted at the sensor making it possible to pressure test the housing and the cable termination for possible water ingress. The Promag family has digital signal processing and the amplifier gain adapts automatically as the flow velocity varies.
All magmeters require a grounding connection between the measured fluid and earth and the traditional engineering solution was to install earth rings between the flanges of the meter and the pipework. Twenty years back, Endress+Hauser devised a cost-saving innovation - the reference electrode - which removes the requirement for earth rings. The reference electrode not only saves cost but increases reliability and makes for easier installation. Magmeters work on the assumption that the pipe is full of liquid and some manufacturers use measuring electrodes mounted on the sides of the measuring tube for empty pipe detection. With this design, the pipe must be half empty before an alarm is raised. Endress+Hauser flowmeters have an additional empty pipe detection electrode fitted at the top of the measuring tube. An alarm will be raised if this electrode is, even momentarily, not covered by liquid. Endress+Hauser offer a fully-automated, user-customisable test cycle to verify the performance of any Promag magmeter onsite. The results are stored in FieldCheck and can be supplied to the user for their own use.
Thermal mass flow meter reduces installation costs
Endress+Hauser also offer the next generation of thermal mass flow meters. The Proline t-mass 65 provides direct measurement of gas mass flow and as an added benefit, provides temperature as an output. Since the mass flow of gas is a direct output and is not a derived measurement, t-mass improves accuracy and reduces installation costs. Proline t-mass 65 is capable of handling a wide variety of gas types and can therefore be used in numerous applications such as measuring mass flow rates of natural gas to boilers and dryers; carbon dioxide flow in breweries; biogas and aeration air in wastewater plants; gas production; leakage detection; and compressed air. The gas to be measured can be made up of a single pure gas such as CO2, or a mixture of up to eight different components.
DSP-based electromagnetic flowmeter is designed for slurries
Endress+Hauser's Promag 55S is a high performance electromagnetic flowmeter specifically designed for harsh 'slurry' applications. It can even handle entrained air (bubbles) and non-homogeneous liquids. Using the latest DSP (digital signal processing) techniques, and advanced electronic filtering, the Promag 55S is able to accurately and reliably measure the flowrates of even the harshest slurries, and totally overcomes the limitations of conventional magmeters in these applications.
Because of the varying characteristics of slurries, the Promag 55S is available with natural rubber liners and 'brush' electrodes for chunky and course applications, or polyurethane liners and tungsten-carbine coated electrodes for finer, abrasive duties. A number of other liner/electrode combinations are also available. The 'brush' electrode design is also unique to Endress+Hauser and each electrode is made of fine stainless steel strands projecting a short distance through the liner such that the impact of flowing stones and ore is elastic and causes no electrode damage.
Ultrasonic flowmeter can be used over a wide range of pipe diameters
Endress+Hauser have developed a cost-effective clamp-on ultrasonic flowmeter for the water and wastewater industries. The Prosonic Flow 91W flowmeter is the most recent addition to the company's proven Proline family and is designed to meet the requirements for hot and cold water applications. It can be installed on most pipe systems used for water services including mild steel, stainless steel, ductile iron, PVC, PE and GRP, among others. Unlike conventional water service flowmeters, the 91W can be used unchanged over a wide range of pipe diameters, from DN50 to DN300, with the consequent benefit of lower inventories of spares.
Case Study:
Instruments help Hastings Council
improve water quality
As part of its mandate to provide adequate and high quality drinking water to the fast growing Port Macquarie district, Hastings Council is constantly improving and expanding its 12 water treatment plants in the area. In late 2004, Hastings Council trialed a new generation chlorine system from Endress+Hauser at their Wauchope Water Treatment Plant. The Endress+Hauser reagent-free CCS140 chlorine sensor, coupled to the CCM253 Liquisys M transmitter, provides higher accuracy and requires lower maintenance than any other water-industry standard competitive offering. Hastings Council selected the pre-assembled option which meant they only had to connect to the inlet and outlet pipes and the system was up and running.
In late 2005, Endress+Hauser won the contract to supply all the instruments for the Telegraph Point Water Treatment Plant expansion. The Deltapilot DB53 submersible pressure sensors were installed in the sodium hydroxide and sodium hypochlorite chemical storage tanks for level measurement. Promag 50W electromagnetic flowmeters were used throughout the upgrade for flow monitoring and Deltabar S differential pressure transmitters were installed across the filters to monitor the cleaning cycle. Temperature, pH and turbidity sensors were also included in the process. Endress+Hauser's "one-shop stop” approach was key to their winning this major implementation, according Adam Carson, Technical Services Coordinator, at Port Macquarie Hastings Council. "By partnering with Endress+Hauser we could reduce the number of vendors we had to deal with and their pricing was competitive,” he explains.
Case Study:
Kwinana Water Reclamation Plant unveils
unique automation strategy
Western Australia's new $28 million Water Corporation owned Kwinana Water Reclamation Plant (KWRP) is not only Australia's largest municipal wastewater reuse plant, but also the site of the country's most comprehensive application of the Profibus philosophy to date. "We chose Profibus because we wanted a fieldbus technology that would enable us to optimise our management decisions, and support our long-term aim of networking our major plants,” comments Dennis Yovich, Principal Engineer, Electrical, in the Corporation's Mechanical and Electrical Services Branch.
The application of fieldbus technology within plants is key to Water Corporation's 'big picture'. Endress+Hauser Australia was selected as the preferred supplier of process instrumentation. The plan is to intelligently connect the five largest water treatment plants within a 50 km radius of Perth and have after hours operation from a centralised operations room at Leederville. Over 150 Endress+Hauser devices, including Promag electromagnetic flowmeters, t-mass gas mass flowmeters, Prowirl vortex flowmeters, Cerabar pressure transmitters were installed. "The integration of digital I/O in the Profibus world - such as alarms, chlorine gas leaks, chlorine residual, low level alarms, empty pipe detection - is exceptional. The more information we have, the better management decisions we can make - enabling us to boost our management and maintenance efficiencies in unprecedented ways, optimise our processes and, ultimately, to pass on big savings to end-users,” says Yovich.
For more information:
phone 1300 363 707
fax 02 8877 7099
email info@au.endress.com
John Immelman, Managing Director
Endress+Hauser Australia Pty Ltd
www.au.endress.com
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