AURING 

Fly ash is a very fine material which is produced by burning of pulverized coal in boilers of thermal power plants. Fly ash produced from coal power stations is disposed off in landfills and ash

ponds. The fly ash is sent to ash ponds in the form of slurry with water

 

    Use Case : The ash slurry is transported in pipelines to ash ponds. The pipelines tend to corrode, and leakages take place causing environmental hazard. The use case here is to detect possibility of leaks early in the pipeline, as well as reduce the possibility of leak causing factors like corrosion, depositions etc.

 

   For Ash slurry, a certain minimum velocity needs to be maintained, to keep solids from settling out in horizontal sections of the pipe. The velocity below a level tends the particles settle out and form a deposit in the pipe. This deposition can lead to increasing the load on the pumps causing failures. The deposition also can also lead to increased corrosion. Based on the high-level understanding monitoring parameters mentioned below can lead to good insights and improving overall performance of the Ash Slurry pipeline functioning.

 

- Monitoring the quality/viscosity of Slurry can help in maintaining             optimum flow.

- Monitoring the pump for proper functioning can provide insights into        flow quality

- Monitoring Flow behaviour of the slurry

 

    Solution : Wireless pressure sensors are deployed on the bends of the pipeline as the slurry gets deposited on the inner walls of the pipe thereby blocking the passage of the slurry being transported through the pipe and also creates a pressure difference in the pipe across the bend.

 

   The sensors helped in detection of these pressure changes across the the bend and the workers can now precisely predict the blockage across the pipeline instead of cutting and opening all the bends across the pipeline.

 

   The sensors wirelessly transmitted pressure values to a central wireless sensor gateway which then transmitted these values to Auring’s IOT platform in JSON over MQTT protocol.

 

   Customer can now see the bends getting chocked in real time on their dashboard screens.

 

   The solution helped in reducing the malfunctioning of pumps and valves and increase the life of the pumps, reduction in corrosion and reduction in leakages.