QNI LIMITED - NEW ORE HANDLING FACILITY
MPA Engineering, in conjunction with CMPS & F, completed the design, installation and commissioning of new PLC software for the QNI Ore Handling Facility located in Townsville.
The PLC system controls and monitors all ore transport operations, which unload the material from ship and deliver it to the train. These include the systematic procedures of crane operations; movement of hoppers tracking portainer cranes; feed rate and transportation of ore on conveyor belts and the control of ore load-out into train wagons.
The entire system is monitored and controlled from the plant control room via fibre optic links to a number of sites. These sites include the supervisor’s office, MIM portainer crane, QNI grab unloader, the wharf substation, wharf I/O, the train load-out substation and the north and south hoppers. The hopper speed and position status information is relayed from each hopper PLC to the main PLC. The plant requires a high degree of fault tolerance as shutdowns and failures directly influence shipping costs. The SIMATIC S5-115H is a “redundant” system and so consists of two interlinked central controllers, which will continue to operate even if one or more faults cause parts of the control system to fail. This makes it an exceptional PLC for the application. One subunit, the master, controls the process. If a fault occurs, the other subunit, the standby, immediately takes over control. This system can also be configured to provide redundant I/O, in which control will pass from the master I/O module to the standby module in the event of I/O module failure. The SIMATIC S5-95U L2-DP slaves were used for the high- speed simple automation tasks where space availability was limited. The ET200U modular I/O station consists of power supply, IM 318 interface module and bus units for up to 32 channel I/O cards.
Using SIEMENS PLC equipment, MPA Engineering has provided the most cost effective and reliable means for increasing the productivity of the QNI Ore Handling Facility.
PLC
Siemens 2 x SIMATIC S5-115H 942B PLC, 2 x SIMATIC S5-95U L2-DP Slaves 3 x ET200U I/O Remote Racks
PROJECT COST $100,000
