Aguas de Saltillo, the water utility company which serves the Mexican city of Saltillo, is responsible for supplying drinking water to a population of around 850 000. To ensure a reliable supply to this arid desert city, the company relies on a water network which draws from several reservoirs with the aid of process instrumentation from Siemens. The Sitrans F M MAG 8000 electromagnetic flowmeters used here are outstandingly robust, durable and reliable, as well as requiring minimal maintenance. Over a hundred of these devices have now been installed in the Aguas de Saltillo network.
Water makes up between 50 and 60% of the human body, covers around two thirds the surface of our planet, and is vital to all forms of life. Ensuring a reliable and good supply of water is essential, but can pose a particular challenge in dry regions. This is true of Saltillo on the edge of the Zapalinamé mountain range. Keeping the bustling economy of the almost million strong city running despite the blistering temperatures and low rainfall is an ingenious and secure water supply system devised by Aguas de Saltillo, together with modern process instrumentation technology from Siemens.
Electromagnetic instead of mechanical
The Saltillo water network is divided into sectors to ensure the optimum management of water distribution from the various reservoirs. Pressure and flow instrumentation has been installed at every inlet to serve several purposes including leak detection, pressure level control, quantification of water losses and measurement data recording. Initially, Aguas de Saltillo selected mechanical meters, but it was not long before this technology proved uneconomical and unreliable.
On the advice of on-site experts, JAR Electronics, the utility company decided to test the Siemens IP68 protection rated battery powered Sitrans F M MAG 8000 electromagnetic flowmeter. This solution comes with the option of a radiometric pressure transmitter and a wireless GSM/GPRS communication module. This facility allows measurement data to be accessed remotely without the need to visit the site. During the test phase, the MAG 8000 accessed the flow and pressure values every five minutes. This data was then transmitted once a day to the OPC server, from where it was accessible to the customer at any time. Its high protection rating meant that the Sitrans F M MAG 8000 was able to withstand even the most adverse of conditions. It even continued to measure reliably in the event of flash flooding.
Test passed with flying colours
Aguas de Saltillo was so impressed by the results of the test that the utility company opted to replace all the existing mechanical meters with Sitrans components, now numbering over a hundred. Juan Diego Bravo Ruiz, chief of Telecontrol and Telemetry for Aguas de Saltillo, summed up the benefits of the newly installed system: “Including the MAG 8000 with GSM as part of our WNS project has greatly benefitted the city of Saltillo. With the consistently accurate flow data we receive from these devices, we are able to make more educated decisions to better protect our water supply, which means we can better protect our people too.”
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