For food & beverage manufacturers, hygienic processing and automation equipment is a must. Hygienic instrumentation has until recently lacked some of the functionality of instrumentation designed for rugged environments found in industries such as oil & gas production, refining, and chemicals.
In a Food Engineering article, Advanced instrumentation technologies provide versatility in food and beverage applications, Emerson’s Joshua Friesz opens noting:
…until recently machinery and process designers had to settle for workable but basic instrumentation due to the limited configurations available for meeting sanitary requirements.
He shares an example of a differential pressure transmitter measuring level for a brewery, that could provide more than just level measurement. With expanded capabilities it could also provide:
- Increases in data scatter coincided with changes in the steam rate to heating coils. If steam was being fed too fast (effectively wasting steam) it could be observed in the level data.
- Graphing transmitter data allowed brewmasters to automatically record many procedures being documented manually. Comparing various batches indicated how consistently the recipes were being followed.
- Heat transfer from one batch being cooled to another being heated could be monitored and graphed.
These additional capabilities enabled:
…brewmasters to evaluate recipes and techniques so they could develop consistency and identify areas where it was practical to add automation.
This hygienic instrumentation in food & beverage applications now includes condition and process diagnostics. Condition diagnostics are for:
…signal gathering and processing functions, and can identify problems such as an internal component failure or power and grounding issues.
Process diagnostics are for detecting conditions:
…outside of the instrument such as changes in process noise or clogging impulse lines.
Unlike traditional measurement instrumentation, hygienic instrumentation is more compact, provides modular connections, and has the necessary certifications for use in hygienic applications.
Read the article for more on the communications options to connect these devices with the control systems and selection criteria to make sure the hygienic devices are suitable for your application.
Visit the Hygienic & Sanitary Measurement in Food & Beverage section on Emerson.com for more on the products and solutions to best fit your operations. You can also connect and interact with other measurement and food & beverage industry experts in the Measurement Instrumentation and Food and Beverage groups in the Emerson Exchange 365 community.