Metal recycling: alloys sorted by hand, shredders fed by feel
Recyclers sort alloys by hand and load shredders by feel. How computed composition and load control can be checked from sensor and drive data.
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Alloys in scrap are sorted by hand
What happens. Scrap arrives mixed, and the alloys are told apart by workers, a spark test or a handheld analyser. The pace is slow, and the result depends on who is on the sorting line.
What it costs. Purity of the sorted fractions, and with it the price of the scrap. A mixed batch can lose a grade, and mistakes only appear when the customer melts it.
Why the usual fix fails. Hand analysers check one spot of one piece. Sorting machines with sensors exist, but their reading must be interpreted into a composition.
How a fixed-price remote diagnosis checks it. From the sensor signals of your sorting line and the labelled samples you hold I check how well the alloy composition can be computed for each piece. The fixed-price remote diagnosis shows how pure the fractions could become and whether the sensors you have are enough.
Background: Computed measurements
Shredders are loaded by the operator
What happens. The crane or loader operator decides how fast the shredder is fed, by watching the motor current and the noise. A bad pile or a hard piece shows only when the rotor slows down.
What it costs. Wear on hammers and grates, and power drawn in surges. An overloaded shredder stops, and a lightly loaded one wastes its capacity.
Why the usual fix fails. The operator’s feel is different from one shift to the next. A fixed feed rate is too low for light scrap and too high for heavy.
How a fixed-price remote diagnosis checks it. From drive current, rotor speed, feed and throughput logs I check how well the load can be predicted and held by a control of the feed rate. The fixed-price remote diagnosis tells you how much throughput, power and wear could be improved and which feed device the control needs.
Background: Predictive control of process plants
Check it on your plant first: a fixed-price remote diagnosis
EUR 4,500 net · 5 working days · remote · availability on request · freelance or through temporary agency work
Within a fixed scope and at a fixed price, I review your data, control structure and measurements remotely and tell you whether the problem on this page is behind your symptoms and what fixing it would take. You get a short summary for decision-makers and a technical report for your engineers.