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DL06 PLC and EZTouch panel help move cement at bulk handling facility

by Jeff Bailey,
Ozinga Bros. Inc
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We recently installed a bulk cement handling facility. The facility offloads cement from river barges and pneumatically conveys the powder into a massive storage dome and truck loading facility. The concrete dome, which can hold 30 barge loads of cement powder, was erected using an inflatable air form system. A MODBUS network of four DL06 PLCs, controlled by an Operator Interface, outloads the cement from the dome. A 4-20 ma PID loop implemented in one of the DL06 processors controls the speed of two hydraulically driven sweep augers. An analog radar sensor monitors the cement level in the truck-loading silo. All three primary functions are graphically animated and displayed on the operator panel. The "supervisory master" DL06 controls the pneumatic conveying system and acts as the communications hub for the slave processors. Each processor runs local functions independent of the master. One feature that is particularly useful is the alarm history on the operator panel. Future planned expansions of this facility will be simply and easily added to our system network.
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