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Sweet success for process control reliability

27th April 2021
Bürkert valves provide improved reliability for East London Sugar Refinery wash process

The reliability of components in a process control environment is key to avoiding unplanned downtime for repairs. For the refinery in East London, repeated replacement of a control valve and a poor mean time between failures (MTBF) led the company to seek an alternative that could cope in a challenging washwater application. Bürkert’s ELEMENT range of process control valves was able to deliver the solution.

The Refinery in East London, is the largest sugar refinery in Europe with a capacity of 1.2 million tonnes per year. Towards the end of the process to remove sugar from the cane, a mixture of sugar crystals and molasses, known as massecuite, is delivered to a number of centrifuges, which spin at speeds up to 1,200 rpm. This process separates the sugar crystals, which are then washed and dried, producing granulated sugar.

Challenging conditions

The centrifuges can process over 20 loads per hour with each batch needing to be washed before it is dried and transferred to the storage silos. The washwater used during this process is controlled by a ball valve with a spring return actuator and an electrical position indicator.

Each control valve is required to perform hundreds of thousands of operations per year and is working with water at 90°C as well as a pressure of 6 bar. This arduous environment applies to all centrifuges that are in operation at the Refinery. However, after several years in operation, the valves had a poor reliability record and were the cause of leaks, which resulted in increased maintenance costs.

As a result, research was carried out to find an alternative design of valve that could handle the repetitive operation as well as the working environment and provide more reliable service. This led to the Bürkert Type 2100 angle seat valve and the Type 8697 pneumatic control unit, both of which are designed for hygienic applications.

Ideal solution

This selection of control valve is well-matched for decentralised process automation and offers excellent sealing properties as well as valve status feedback via LEDs on the pneumatic control unit itself. Together with the use of chemically-resistant materials in its construction and proven IP ratings, the Bürkert control valve assembly is ideally suited for applications in the food and beverage sector.

Using planned downtime in production, the plant initially installed 16 Bürkert control valves, with a further 16 larger control valves being installed on a similar application. The Senior Reliability Engineer at the plant commented: “These new valves have proven to be easy to install and a great improvement in terms of reliability. Their introduction has contributed to an improvement in machine up time at our facility and their high cycling ability makes them well-suited to wide range of applications in the plant.”

 

Image 1: Bürkert’s Type 2100 angle seat valve and Type 8697 pneumatic control unit were specified, both of which are designed for hygienic applications

Image 2: Bürkert’s Type 2100 angle seat valve and Type 8697 pneumatic control unit were specified, both of which are designed for hygienic applications

Image 3: The reliability of components in the customers process control environment is key to avoiding unplanned downtime for repairs. (Image Source: shutterstock_693307864)


About Bürkert

Bürkert Fluid Control Systems is one of the leading manufacturers of control and measuring systems for fluids and gases. The products have a wide variety of applications and are used by breweries and laboratories as well as in medical engineering and space technology. The company employs over 2,200 people and has a comprehensive network of branches in 35 countries world-wide.


Editorial Contact: Brittany Kennan

Tel: +44 (0)1905 917477

Web: news.dmaeuropa.com

Email: [email protected]

Address: Progress House, Midland Road, Worcester, Worcestershire, WR5 1AQ, United Kingdom

Reader Contact:

Bürkert Fluid Control Systems: Kirsty Anderson

Tel: +44 (0)1285 648761

Web: http://www.burkert.co.uk

Email: [email protected]

Address: Burkert Fluid Control Centre, 1 Bridge End, Cirencester, Gloucestershire, GL7 1QY, United Kingdom