Drinks packaging company Hereford Contract Canning recently contacted Flowhire to see if we could assist with identifying pressure losses on their C02 line. HCC who have been in operation for two years have rapidly gained a reputation for providing high quality packaging solutions for the beer, cider and soft drinks market their customers include high profile companies such as Marks and Spencer as well as other leading brand names were experiencing low C02 pressure from their C02 system, resulting in lost production time. It was initially assumed that this was due to 500 kg/hr maximum flow rate on their C02 system, but without any form of metering fault diagnosis was proving difficult.
Flowhire were approached to see if they could assist with a temporary metering solution which could identify where the losses were being made. Flowhire suggested the Endress and Hauser Coriolis Promass Flow meter which offers premium accuracy in measurement of gases, along with the an SL7104 datalogger which can record flow rates at selected intervals.
The mass flow meter was installed into the low pressure gas main as the supply end of the system and the datalogger connected into the 4/20mA output loop of the meter to record flow rate readings at 15 second intervals. The HCC process operators kept a log of the activity which was cross referenced against the downloaded data from the logger, this enabled them to identify the maximum demands on the C02 system.
As a result of the meter installation HCC were able to confirm that the maximum C02 demand was around 420 kg/hr which is well within the design specification of the C02 supply systems. Based on this information they were able to locate a fault with the non-return valve on the C02 vapouriser unit.
For more information on Flowhire products and applications contact: info@flowhire.co.uk
