SIL2-compliant air measurement

MEP Olbo (today: OLBO & Mehler) is the world's leading specialist in the manufacture of technical yarns and fabric products. In Hessisch-Lichtenau a production plant according to DIN EN 1539 is operated. This standard places high demands on plant safety and explosion protection.

In concrete terms, this means for production that a minimum amount of air must be conveyed to prevent the formation of an ignitable mixture. This minimum volume should be ensured at all times by continuous air volume measurement. Due to the high safety requirements, the measurement technology must be SIL2-compliant and explosion-proof.

This is aggravated by the heavy contamination of the air volume to be measured by the fibres of the production process. Due to the high temperatures, these tend to adhere to all pipeline internals.

Conclusion: The customer was convinced by the economical implementation of these high flow measurement requirements using an SDF sensor. The customer's long-term experience is consistently positive. According to the operator, the measurement still provides "stable and reliable measurement results" even with extremely dirty pipelines. Although the piping is heavily soiled from the inside, the profile of the probe has dirt-repellent properties.

The customer's operating personnel certified the measurement to be "reproducible and reliable" until the last day of operation. The application demonstrates that SDF probes also measure heavily contaminated gas with long-term stability under complicated circumstances.