Digitalisation | Elkem Salten

Remote access to 470 flow meters strengthens leak detection and maintenance

Init helped Elkem Salten establish remote access to 470 water flow meters through System 800xA, closing a hidden gap in leak detection and paving the way for predictive maintenance.

 

Elkem Salten, located in Straumen in Sørfold, is one of the world’s largest silicon plants, supplying silicon and microsilica to customers worldwide. Water cooling is essential to its furnaces, and the plant relies on flow meters to detect leaks.

In 2017, a major water leak occurred on one of the furnaces without being detected by the leak detection system. Elkem Salten engaged Init Kristiansand (then Necto) to find out why, and to establish remote access to the water flow meters on the plant’s furnaces.

Init engineer with a laptop in front of rows of industrial flow meters

ASPIRATION

Making sure normal readings really mean normal operation

The investigation revealed a hidden weakness. During a large leak, the pipe the flow meter is connected to fills with air. This causes a measurement error, and the meter goes into its failsafe state. By factory default, the meter then outputs the last acceptable measured value. Because a large leak develops so quickly, the control system receives values that appear normal, making it very difficult for operators to see that the meter is in failsafe and that the readings are not real.

The same configuration applied to all flow meters on the three furnaces, around 470 units in total. Elkem Salten needed every one of them reconfigured with a failsafe value that would indicate a risk of leakage, and in a way that was both fast and practical.

SOLUTION

Two ways to reach 470 meters - we chose remote access

The choice stood between connecting a computer to each meter in turn or establishing remote access through the control system. Many of the flow meters are difficult to reach, so working through them one by one would have been slow and impractical. Together with Elkem Salten, Init Kristiansand therefore implemented remote access.

The flow meters are connected to an AC800M PLC and a Profibus PA network. Cyclic data is retrieved using the Profibus DP-V0 protocol and presented in System 800xA. To retrieve diagnostics and instrument information, a connection is established between the server and each meter using FDT/DTM technology, which enables acyclic Profibus DP-V1 communication. FDT/DTM is part of the Device Management package in System 800xA, where all instrument information is stored.

By combining cyclic and acyclic communication, process values, diagnostics and instrument data are now presented on a single platform. This allowed Init Kristiansand to access each individual meter and change the failsafe parameter, without anyone having to visit the meters in the plant.

RESULT

Safer operations today, predictive maintenance tomorrow

There is now full information flow between the flow meters and the control system. Parameters can be changed directly from the control room, and the meters are configured so that a failsafe state signals a potential leak instead of masking it. Maintenance personnel also receive diagnostics from every meter, allowing them to follow its condition and replace it shortly before failure, during planned routine shutdowns.

With Device Management in place, Elkem Salten can move towards a more predictable and proactive maintenance strategy. There is no longer any need to guess whether an instrument has a problem: attention can be directed to the instruments that actually need work, when the data shows it. As a result, periodic testing can be significantly reduced or eliminated entirely, and operational issues can be handled faster.

Reach out

for more information

Geir Kulia

Commercial Manager

[email protected]

Init Kristiansand,

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