Monitoring based reporting is vital for assessing the performance of a crushing plant. Metso provides tools for that through its plant-wide automation system, Metso DNA (dynamic network of applications), and its information platform that links all the crushing and screen units together as one entity. There is a lot of measured real-time information available in every crushing plant, on-line information is obtained either from each Metso crusher’s machine automation system IC (intelligent controller) or separately installed additional sensors and belt scales. The only thing that remains to be done is to process and analyse all that data to show the essence of it for efficient plant maintenance and profitable production.
All the collected data is brought into a motor home using wireless communication based on WLAN technology. In this environment selected variables can be monitored for assessing the plant performance, and to make this even more flexible, the data can be transmitted to a company office using GPRS/3G data communication technologies. Hereby, all the last-minute reports are accessible to the crushing plant managerial staff anytime and anywhere within reach of the cellphone network.
Production and energy economics reports
Monitoring and reporting can be customised to fit user requirements. However, there are also off-the-shelf reports to provide standard information for plant supervision: the production report is one of these. Requiring at least one belt scale for measuring the total production, the production report shows production rate (tons per hour) for a selected reporting period. In addition to graphic trends and distribution charts, the production report reveals deviation from the average production in terms of min/max values and standard deviations. The production report keeps track of plant production storing all the data covering the life-cycle of the plant.
Energy consumption is always a relevant concern. The consumption report gives the value for each crushing unit, as well as the overall consumption for a selected reporting period. Comparing consumption trends and distribution charts simplifies the energy economics assessment process. If there are belt scales available, energy consumption could be evaluated in terms of cost per produced ton of aggregates.
Availability reports
Crushing plant availability can be assessed as well. By storing the availability times between start-ups and shutdowns, the crushing plant operation time (hours per day/shift) can be recorded, analysed and reported. More specifically, the availability report can be tailored to evaluate efficient crushing hours during which the plant is really working and producing aggregates. Consequently, the ratio (0-100%) between efficient crushing time and total running time can be reported for any selected time period. This gives a boost to efficient plant operations for a better productivity.
Reports on non-choke or inadequate feeding
Non-choke feeding to crushers is avoidable through smart plant-wide crushing plant controls. But estimating the efficiency of that in a systematic manner requires constant monitoring and reporting. The crusher choke feeding report makes use of crusher cavity level sensors. By calculating average, min/max values and deviation from the average, it can be shown how often a single crusher suffers from non-choke feeding. This serves as a starting point for improving plant-wide crushing controls.
In many cases, the bottleneck of productivity is the material feed to the process, which is often operator controlled and therefore, subject to variation. To track down periods when the plant suffers from inadequate feed, there is a specific report that calculates the ratio between inadequate feed over the total time of operation time. This helps to keep feed conditions optimal at all times.
Condition monitoring of crushers and screens
Machine-specific condition monitoring focuses on vibrating components in crushers and screens such as drive shaft bearings, safety plates and gears. The low, middle and high frequencies of monitored components are measured and analysed in real-time to detect abnormalities due to slow or fast wear, looseness or imbalance. This condition monitoring together with the reporting functionality enables efficient predictive maintenance saving the plant from component breaks, unscheduled maintenance and consequent production losses.
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