SIPOS solution aids guide vane system

Bespoke software for the SIPOS 5 Flash actuator has been designed for guide vane control at the Lichterfelde power plant, Germany. Working in partnership with the technical plant team, SIPOS Aktorik provided a customised product modification to enhance efficiency of guide vane adjustment.
Moderating heat dissipation throughput for cooling tower pumps by guide vane adaption was previously achieved at Lichterfelde using a gear motor. However, the system was not capable of identifying any sluggishness in guide vane adjustment: warning signals were only sent once guide vanes were blocked and the thermoswitches/motor protection delay of the gear motor had tripped.
SIPOS’ specialist software engineering team produced a solution which will signal any failure in time to avoid complete shut-down of the cooling tower pump. Additionally, it was ensured that the existing DCS control would not be affected, even when new actuators were installed.
The actuator software variant produced by SIPOS for Lichterfelde addresses the limitations of the original motorised solution with strain relief of the guide vanes’ chain gear: this was achieved through automatic reversal of the actuator.  
 
 
Previous articleSIPOS at Valve World Asia 2011
Next articleModular actuation advantages reported by MRPL