Measurement and control technology on the way to the industry 4.0:

GreCon with new solution approaches on the Ligna 2017

Calling production relevant information in real time to control production safely and efficiently on this data basis is one of the most important tasks on the way to the industry 4.0 for many companies.

Fagus-GreCon introduces numerous product developments in the field of preventive fire protection as well as in the measuring technology sector on the Ligna 2017. These developments can provide an important contribution thanks to an improved integration of the systems.

The integration of the GreCon spark detection system in the customer's machine control will also be possible via PROFINET in the future. With this leading Ethernet standard for automation, GreCon offers two standardised field bus connections besides POWERLINE to record and evaluate all conditions of the system at a central point. Thereby a decentralised architecture of the system becomes possible. The event data of the safety equipment can be easily connected with the data of the process control. New detailed analysis options to optimise the production system with respect to a safe operation become possible. EtherNet/Ipals third open standard will also be available at short-term.

Furthermore, a new thermal detector which monitors the surface temperature in a more flexible way than before will also be introduced. It is possible to measure the surface temperature at freely selectable points by three contact sensors. If the temperature exceeds a previously fixed limit value, the aggregate is switched off automatically. The fire risk caused by smouldering fires due to dust deposits on the case surface is considerably reduced.

Furthermore, the additional extremely precise temperature values open new analysis possibilities in order to derive e.g. preventive measures.

More and more measuring systems made by Fagus-GreCon are integrated in the customer-specific system controls. Thus, the FORMATOR regulates the constant material distribution in the mat, one of the most important requirements for a continuous production quality in the wood-based material production. Thanks to the FORMATOR, material fluctuations are reduced to a minimum by an automatic control process not only within one production order, but also within the individual board. This control process is based on the detection of material fluctuations before the press in the mould line. This measuring data is automatically fed back to the upstream moulding tool, in this case the segmented scalper, via a corresponding control circuit. The segmented scalper regulates the material distribution immediately by the specific activation of rollers which eliminate local fluctuations by lifting and lowering. This control process implements a specified target profile of the mass per unit area via the width of the mat.

A quality factor, which can control the adjustment of the refiner discs automatically, is generated with "Fiberview" - the optical inline measuring system to assess the fibre quality. A correlation between refiner setting and fibre quality was confirmed in numerous scientific studies in a detailed evaluation phase. Based on this data, it is possible to develop a refiner control based on the fibre quality.

The "Fiberview" transfers the current actual values for the number of shives to the controller via the OPC interface. The respective controller adapts the distance of the grinding discs so that the current number of shives always remains within the previously defined tolerance range. The first refiner control based on the fibre quality has been in use with great success since the end of the last year.

These examples show that stand-alone systems are more and more replaced by interlinked systems. "A trend to the development of which we will decisively contribute" said Kai Greten, Technical Managing Director of Fagus-GreCon.

We look forward to your visit of our exhibition booth in hall 26, booth no. C42.