2004-09-27 - Magnetic flow meters from ABB Instrumentation are helping UPM Kymmene (UK) Limited, Shotton Paper, improve its environmental credentials and reduce its production costs.
Shotton Paper has recently completed a major project moving away from virgin wood as the raw material for its paper production, instead using waste paper. Known as the 100% Shotton project, it has involved the building of a new recycled fiber plant, a sludge plant and modifications to PM1 and PM2.
The project uses 133 ABB Mag XM flow meters and nine Mag SM flow meters. Used mainly in the recycled fibre plant and sludge plant, the meters measure consistencies ranging from less than one percent up to 12 percent.
Ray von der Fecht, automation manager for the 100% Shotton project, chose ABB flow meters based on good experience with them in the past – the plant already uses over 4,000 ABB flow meters. “ABB magnetic flow meters are very good,” he says. “Being ruggedly built, they can cope with demanding industrial applications. ABB also gave us a very keen price.”
The ABB Mag XM magnetic flow meter is a pulse dc, high performance, general purpose flow meter, designed for base water and low consistency stock below three percent. Consisting of a flow meter primary and a converter in a compact or remote mounted design, the Mag XM provides accurate flow rate measurement of liquids, slurries, pastes and sludges, providing minimum conductivity 5 µS/cm standard or 0.05 µS/cm at meter with capacitive signal pick up. The capacitive signal pickup can be used for fluids which form insulating coatings on the liners.
In contrast, the ABB Mag SM is a high frequency ac unit designed to handle high consistency liquids in the pulp & paper and the food & beverage industry. With a minimum conductivity of 20 µS/cm (Option 0,5 µS/cm), it is ideal for measurements of high consistency pulp stock up to 15%.
Says von der Fecht: “We looked at several other suppliers for the magnetic flow meters for the project, but ABB came out tops, offering the best product at the best price. Their products offer a good combination of low maintenance, high reliability and sound engineering, with good, heavy duty, all metal cases. They certainly do the job we want them to do.
“The service and support we get from ABB is also excellent. They helped us with commissioning, their staff are very well qualified and any queries we have are answered quickly and efficiently.”