Data acquisition specialists, Designs Unique of Johannesburg, has been commissioned to implement an advanced laboratory monitoring and control system for Circle Cement in Harare, Zimbabwe. This system will be used for the testing and certification of the products tested in the laboratory.
Due to increasing demand for traceability during the research, testing and manufacture of cement and concrete materials, highly accurate process test data is required. The monitoring software was developed by Designs Unique, local agents for Intelligent Instrumentation, one of the world's leading suppliers of PC-based solutions for data acquisition and control.
Designs Unique has already successfully implemented this solution in several local cement and concrete laboratories such as Lafarge SA in Industria, Alpha Stone & Ready Mix's Jukskei and Roodepoort's facilities, as well as at the Cement and Concrete Institute in Midrand.
Several solutions have been adopted in these installations including Ethernet and USB-based data acquisition, which are both ideal for this type of application. The developed software for this application runs on a PC in the labs and requires little, or no maintenance. Operator/administrator parameters may be easily adjusted and set without any programming knowledge. The software was developed in such a way as to facilitate on-screen adjustment, alarm settings (if required), etc, by authorised personnel, with all practical and safety limits 'preset' and 'locked' into the software.
Complete graphical visualisation of the monitored points are 'on-screen', along with digital, analog meter display, bar graph, as well as chart recording, adjustable to suitable 'logging' and display periods. This data, sampled at required intervals, is then written to hard drive, immediately on 'read' completion, and stored for upload to other statistical software.
The data is able to be stored for analysis in Excel, or directly into a database such as Microsoft's Access or Sequel Server, where more sophisticated archiving and other functions can be implemented. Various critical parameters and signals, such as relative humidity, ambient and oven temperatures, in the various laboratory facilities, etc are monitored. The data acquisition PC system is connected to several other PC systems in the complex and networks the data to these systems for remote monitoring and observation.
Tests such as oxygen permeability, which is a time-consuming test, is now fully automated, and no longer requires the manual logging of data and time-stamping at regular time intervals, which previously dictated the timeous commencement time of the test, with regard to personnel's working hours in the lab.
The primary instrument used for temperature and humidity display and recording, was developed 'in-house' by Designs Unique and resulted in an accurate, reliable, and rugged unit, incorporating a microprocessor-controlled sensor that requires no calibration. Sensors can be swapped directly between units at any time without calibration.
An onboard built-in calibrator is used for the accurate calibration of the 4 to 20 mA and 0 to 10 V output transmission signals. The unit is normally wall-mounted in the lab and the ultra-bright display showing temperature and humidity is visible from around 30 metres. This enables lab personnel to observe the environmental conditions whilst performing their normal duties in the lab.
For more information contact Bobby Holdcroft, Designs Unique, 011 646 1171, [email protected]
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