LEADING TECHNOLOGY IN BALL MILL CONTROL
With MILLPILOT KIMA Process Control offers the most robust, open and easy to handle Advanced Control System in the Cement Industry. Since 1996 this ‘Auto-Pilot’ system was installed in hundreds of cement plants to operate mills fully autonomously. The rule-based expert system for Ball Mills, VRMs and also combined systems of Roller Presses and Ball Mills secures permanent optimum production and energy efficiency – without any manual interaction necessity.
The development of the so-called “electronic ear” SMARTFILL system started around the year 2000 and was under continuous enhancement and adaptation to modern requirements over the last few years.
SMARTFILL was, and is, a serious revolution in sensor technology as a high-precision, interference-free level measurement method in ball mills. Over 750 systems installed in more than 50 countries worldwide underline the success of this product. It gives the most reliable and useful input values for the MILLPILOT expert system.
MARKET LEADER IN FILL-LEVEL MEASUREMENT
Precise control needs precise measurement. As classic “electrical ears” were unable to deliver the precision required, SMARTFILL has been developed as an alternative which cannot be affected by external sound sources or other mills in the vicinity.
In comparison with microphone-based systems and vibration sensors on bearings, SMARTFILL does not conflict with other sound and signal sources. The structure-born sound sensor only receives the signal directly on the mill body itself. SMARTFILL is operated in buildings with 16 mills, side-by-side without any interference between the measurement systems.
The signals from SMARTFILL can and should be used as set-points in an advanced controller.
OPTIMISED GRINDING PERFORMANCE
The high precision of the electronic ear SMARTFILL and the consistens use of the strategy “fill level = const.” in the expert system MILLPILOT, that makes the difference. The synergy of the precise chamber filling, which indicates the grindability of the material, and the multi-dimensional fuzzy controller above, opened up new capacities and saved electrical power costs in considerable amounts.
Additionally, the wearing out of balls and liners is reduced due to the fact that running a mill empty unintentionally is avoided. On the other hand, the high stability of SMARTFILL’s calibration makes it an efficient protection against overfilling as well.
KILNCOOLER
With the KILNCOOLER another intelligent solution is provided that treats hot spots on the kiln shell and avoids unexpected kiln stops. The system features four infrared pyrometers that permanently measure the surface temperature while the controller behind it ensures the water mist from 4 nozzles will cool only those areas of a kiln which are over-heated.
