Situation
This client has several large parts washers located within their facility and all use multiple steam plates for heating. On occasion one of the steam plates will start to leak and contaminate their condensate return lines back to the facility boilers. This causes several costly issues including:
- Dumping large quantities of water that is above their discharge limit
- Poor cleaning of parts as saturated steam now dilutes the chemical bath
- Lost production as it takes significant time to locate the washer which is having the steam plate leak so corrective action can be taken.
Process Improvements
Special high temperature conductivity sensors were installed to continuously monitor the condensate return from each washer.
Benefits Delivered
Now when a steam plate begins to leak, the CMI system immediately detects the increase in condensate return conductivity and automatically alarms the customer as to which washer has the steam leak. This saves on lost production time and manpower to locate the bad steam plate. It saves water. It also reduces energy costs from not having to heat up as much make up water.
