To measure flow of sugar cane bagasse using Sick Lidar Bulkscan

[SA07]

Hi
Has anyone use the Sick Lidar Bulkscan sensor to measure bagasse flow in ton/hr on conveyor belt? Does it work well?
Please see attached a doc on the sensor.

 

[FacEngrPE]

Sick Lidar Bulkscan measures the shape of your pile on the conveyor belt. It will provide an accurate measure of weight only if density is constant.
So the question might be what is good enough?
If you have a conveyor scale, the Lidar measurement will allow calculating density.

 

[SA07]

we already have weighbridges with load cells Make Precia Molen. We can only tare and calibrate them on Sunday and the conveyor operate 6/7. During the week, the measurement drifts by 20 ton/hr or more. Our boiler regulation uses the bagasse flow measurement. This creates jamming of bagasse in conveyor chute. We want to install another type of sensor to measure bagasse flow.

 

[3DDave]

Background information:

https://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=485270

How do you know there is any "drift" at all if you only "tare" on Sunday?

Add a height sensor so the volume of material will not jam the chute.

 

[FacEngrPE]

The Sick Lidar Bulkscan sensor might work for boiler control. You can try assuming that the density is constant bagasse, and see if that works better than the weighbridge. Boiler controls need repeatability more than accuracy.
It is likely that you can lessen the jamming of the chute, as that is probably a volume thing.

You will probably need to adjust your boiler tuning during the experiment.

The answer to "will it work" here probably depends on how tight you need to control your firing conditions.

Both the weighbridge and the bulkscan depend on an accurate measure of conveyor speed. If your current method is causing problems there are a number of non contact speed sensors that can be experimented with.

 

[SA07]

Based on the rate of crushing of milling we know what flow of bagasse there is on the conveyor belt coming from the milling. No need to tare on Sunday to check that the actual weighbridge measurement is drifting.

 

[SA07]

The supplier of radiometric sensor told us that it will not work on bagasse as the latter is not dense enough.

 

[FacEngrPE]

The feature of bagease that likely is the problem is that it does not present a "surface". Lidar mapping has this problem when surveying over a vegetated area. They solve the problem by having a large enough spot to return a sort of average, and then filtering for first return (vegetation) and last return (ground). See the attachment for a discussion.

Since this is essentially a post processing filter, performed by in this case the sensor firmware, there is a possibility that some provider of conveyor volume sensors has attempted a solution of this problem. Look for one that can do a volume measurement of agricultural products like loose straw and silage.

 

[3DDave]

Explain how this crushing process is so well known that you aren't using it to regulate.