Flow, level & control
Sensors keep Marston’s
on the level M
A new level monitoring and control system based on ifm electronic sensors with IO-Link technology has operated faultlessly since it was commissioned
arston’s Brewery is a company with a long and proud tradition – it has been producing its popular and highly
regarded English ales at its site in Burton-on- Trent in Staffordshire since 1898. But although tradition has much to recommend it when it comes to the techniques of beer production, this is not always the case with process control. Modern options can sometimes offer important benefits, as proved to be the case when the company decided to update the level control system on six of its massive bright beer storage tanks, each of which can hold up to 21,000 litres of beer.
Prior to the update, the plant operators monitored and controlled the level of beer in the tanks manually with the aid of sight glasses – essentially the same system that had been in use since the brewery first opened. The sight glasses required regular cleaning, however, which was a difficult and inconvenient operation, and some were not readily visible, making it hard for the operators to keep track of the levels. As a result, a tank was sometimes allowed to become completely empty, allowing air into the system, which disrupted the operation of the bottling lines. For help with devising a better and more dependable level control solution, Marston’s
Brewery approached sensing experts, ifm electronic. Key requirements were that the new solution should enable accurate automatic control of levels in the tanks, that it should interface with the plant’s existing PLC and SCADA systems to allow the levels to be monitored remotely, and that it should provide clear level indication adjacent to the tanks via digital displays. After carefully assessing the requirements and noting the need for the solution to be
32 October 2020 Instrumentation Monthly
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