Continuous control of process media significantly contributes to the reliability of industrial production. Not only in process industry liquid media are used. More and more process technology is involved in industrial manufacturing. Besides pressure and flow sensors also temperature sensors are needed to monitor and control these media. Although new machine designs are optimized in terms of energy efficiency in many cases heat is added to the production equipment.
Thermal reading of media by temperature sensors
Process stability
To achieve a defined and stable temperature level (in many cases slightly above the environmental temperature) the added heat dissipation of the production process constantly has to be managed.
Typically a coolant liquid or hydraulic fluid is cycling through the areas of the production equipment who tend to heat up. Then it runs to a heat exchanger system which cools down the liquid to a defined value. Some applications even require a defined viscosity of the liquids in use. Often the media viscosity depends on its temperature.
Historically classic cylindrical housing temperature probes with e.g. diameter 3 mm have been applied for temperature measurement. The values via cable are transferred to a PLC. For factory automation applications housings with integrated display and adjustable switching point (via pushbutton parametrization) have become more and more popular.
This housing style is pretty common in hydraulic power packs. Besides the main sensor function to transmit temperature values via cable to the control system additionally the display of the sensor provides visual monitoring functionality for the machine/plant operator.
Hydraulic power pack
Often thermal flow sensors are used in combination with temperature sensors
Monitoring of industrial processes
Monitoring of industrial processes is more and more relevant. With increasing digitalization in industry the demand of transparent visualization of the production constantly grows. Here you find a video which shows an example for visualization of sensor data。
Link for further information about temperature sensing of process media.
Link to temperature sensor product infos.
