Electricity + Control April 2019

FLOW MEASUREMENT + INSTRUMENTATION

The Promass Q trial was completed

successfully – delivering on set assessment

criteria and exceeding

customer purchasing additional flowmeters for use in another high loss application area – milk re- ceiving and offloading. Acknowledgements to Endress+Hauser for information supplied. For more information, contact: Anban Pillai, Industry Manager - Food and Beverage, Anban.pillai@za.endress.com Milk delivery, receiving and offloading The measuring task here is to provide accu- rate flow measurement of milk unloading from tanker trucks into processing plants. Challenges arise because milk’s protein and fat structure tends to entrap air easi- ly, causing errors in the measurement of batch unloading. Air may be introduced into the process in different ways, as a re- sult of: - Agitation during transport in the tanker trucks - Being drawn into the process through loose process connections or leaking seals - Pump unloading when gravity drainage isn’t possible - Insufficient settling time in the tanks or improperly or undersized air elimina- tors.

The installation of air eliminators in the process can help to an extent, but cannot totally remove the entrained gas due to the bubbles being under- sized, or as a result of insufficient holding times. The solution George Dyman, Sales Engineer for Endress+ Hauser in the region, visited the plant and recom- mended the Promass Q, which is designed specifi- cally to measure entrained gas.The multi-frequency technology employed by the Promass Q allows for the measurement of entrained gas, which can then be compensated for in the flow measurement to deliver greater accuracy in milk applications. The site engineering manager for the customer indicated that the issue of entrained gas had been causing significant quality and financial issues for the organisation. He asked Endress+Hauser to provide a formal confirmation stating that should the Promass Q not provide accurate measure- ments in this application, the flowmeter would be returned, without cost to the customer. Flow Product Manager, Frans van den Berg, with support from the Flowtec offices in Switzer- land, committed to this and offered the customer a written guarantee confirming Endress+Hauser’s confidence in the product’s performance in this application. The new trial Promass Q was installed and run together with the existing meters so the accuracy improvements could be compared. The trial was completed successfully – deliver- ing on the set assessment criteria and exceeding the customer’s expectation. This has led to the

the customer’s expectations.

Electricity + Control

APRIL 2019

19