The latest Government and EU guidelines on waste management have led to a number of companies investing heavily in the design and development of integrated waste recycling plants.
In order to operate the process economically and efficiently, a high level of automation is required.
High yields are closely dependent upon effective and robust control of the process.
During 2004, we were contracted by one such company to design, build, install and commission an integrated automation system for a prototype/demonstrator plant.
The entire plant is controlled by the operators from a central control console inside the control room (above) via HMIs and various controls.
The plant automation hardware platform is based around Proface GLC Graphical Logic Controllers and Flex Network Distributed I/O.
This connects to a containerised variable speed drive suite that directly controls machinery such as Bagsplitters, Transfer Conveyors, Streamers, Composters etc.