Newsletter December 2015

Accelerated pickling bath

SPANGLER – the Plus of Retrofitting.

Stainless-steel processing requires a clean surface. To achieve this, machined stainless steel is usually pickled in acid baths. All ferritic particles and the weld heat tinting are removed though the pickling process, thereby “STAINLESS STEEL-RUST-FREE” surface is produced.

It is at one such plant – at HUBER SE in Berching, one of the world’s leading companies in water treatment technology – that the control system was renewed this summer. The Siemens S5 PLC, which was over 20 years old, was suffering from a typical problem in the lifecycle of electronic components: its functionality simply no longer sufficed, so it was replaced by a Siemens S7-1500 with SPANGLER switch system. The user interface is a 15″ touch panel and remote access.

Making energy processes transparent

The production processes involved in pickling are to be implemented via an energy management system in the future. Various consumption parameters are recorded for this purpose and thus the process made transparent. The parameters are defined together with the client, so that the latter’s individual priorities for optimised energy use can be derived from the results.

The work at the client’s premises provided a particular challenge also in this case. There were only ten days available for the dismantling of the old control system, the placement and connection of the new one, the implementation of software and for commissioning. However, SPANGLER managed it. The software ran flawlessly right from the start: the operation has become much easier and the pickling process significantly faster. Dr. Michael Wilke and Richard Schöll expressed their satisfaction, also in conversation: “From planning to execution, and from installation to software and commissioning, everything went in a perfect way. We would like to sincerely thank you at this point for your fabulous work.”

Preparation for the pickling process
Pickling plant operation