Endress+Hauser Installs WirelessHART Network in Mining Operation's Movable Leach Fields
May 1, 2010- A mining operation in the U.S. manages leaching fields over a wide and rolling geographic area. The leach fields are regularly relocated, and use movable, temporary piping to deliver leaching chemicals to highly distributed delivery points that must be monitored via flow and pressure instrumentation to optimize operation.
The system uses 44 Endress+Hauser Promag 53P flowmeters and Cerabar WirelessHART pressure transmitters to monitor flow and pressure.
Endress+Hauser WirelessHART Promag 53P and Cerabar transmitters monitor flow and pressure.
Endress+Hauser was also contracted to engineer a WirelessHART network that could reliably communicate with instrumentation spread over the 2400 foot wide leach field sections. Because the leach fields are regularly moved from place to place, a hard-wired network could not be used. Instead, the flexible WirelessHART redundant and mesh architecture accommodates the relocation with a minimum of effort. The system has two Endress+Hauser SWG70 Fieldgates that gather information from the 44 transmitters and transmit the information via Ethernet/WiFi and OPC to a Rockwell Automation ControlLogix system.
Typical installation: Solar-powered pressure and flow transmitters connect to SWA70-C8 WirelessHART Adapters, which transmit to either of two SWG70 Fieldgates.The Fieldgates, in turn, transmit via Ethernet/WiFi to a Rockwell Automation ControLogix system.
Two Endress+Hauser engineers performed a one-day site survey, and then took four days to install 44 SWA70-C8 WirelessHART Adapters on the instrumentation, start up the system, and train the mine's operators.
Using the wireless field network eliminated the cost of implementation when the leach fields were relocated, and the availablility of reliable flow and pressure information allowed the mine to optimize operations and realize a return on investment (ROI) of less than two months.
Diagram of a typical installation. Each site has one pressure transmitter and one flow transmitter, and two WirelessHART adapters on post mounts. Each of the two Fieldgates transmit via WiFi to the ControlLogix system.
Contact: Kathleen Spindler
Marketing Manager
Endress+Hauser, Inc.
Phone: 317-535-1329
Fax: 317-535-2171
www.us.endress.com
