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Imagine you are a chef in a busy kitchen, and you are cooking a large pot of soup. The level gauges in your pot are like your senses, helping you to monitor the level of liquid in your pot and adjust the heat and ingredients accordingly.

Just as a chef uses their senses to taste and smell the soup and adjust the seasoning and heat, instrumentation managers rely on level gauges to monitor the liquid levels in tanks and vessels and adjust the chemical processes accordingly. Without level gauges, it would be like cooking a soup without tasting it, which would result in an unbalanced and potentially inedible dish.

In the chemical industry, level gauges provide instrumentation managers with critical information about the liquid levels in tanks and vessels, which they can use to optimize chemical processes, ensure safety, and prevent waste. They help instrumentation managers to make informed decisions about when to start and stop chemical reactions, when to add more ingredients or reagents, and when to transfer liquids to other equipment or containers.

Let us look at five ways Level Gauges help in the chemical industry.

• Providing Accurate Readings

The primary function of a level gauge is to give an accurate reading of the fluid level in a tank or vessel. This information is crucial in the chemical industry. Gauges such as Magnetic Level Indicators help prevent overfilling or underfilling storage tanks, reactors, and distillation columns, which can lead to safety hazards or inefficiencies.

• Enhancing Process Control

Level gauges are also used in the chemical industry to help improve process control. With accurate readings from reflex level gauges, operators can quickly adjust the process parameters, such as flow rate or temperature, to maintain optimal process conditions. This helps to improve process efficiency, reduce energy costs, and minimize waste.

• Aiding Maintenance Planning

Level gauges can also help plan maintenance activities. By monitoring the fluid levels in tanks and vessels with the help of float and tape-type level gauges, operators can anticipate when maintenance is required. This will help minimize downtime and avoid unexpected maintenance issues.

• Improving Safety

Safety is of utmost importance in the chemical industry, and level gauge manufacturers in India can help improve safety by providing early warning of potential hazards. For example, suppose a tank is overfilled. In that case, it can release toxic or flammable gases, posing a serious risk to employees and the environment. With accurate readings of a transparent level gauge, operators can quickly take action to prevent such incidents.

• Streamlining Inventory Management

Effective inventory management is crucial in the chemical industry. Level gauges can help streamline inventory management by providing real-time information on fluid levels in tanks and vessels. Radar Level Transmitter Suppliers can help you optimize inventory levels, reducing the risk of stockouts or overstocking.

In conclusion, level gauges play a critical role in the chemical industry, providing accurate readings, enhancing process control, aiding maintenance planning, improving safety, and streamlining inventory management. Whether you need a reflex level gauge, or a magnetic level gauge, it is essential to choose a reliable and experienced supplier to ensure that your level measurement needs are met.

General Instruments Consortium has been leading the level gauge manufacturing industry in India for more than 5 decades. With a strong focus on problem-solving with innovative, customized solutions, Team General is always ready to help instrumentation managers get the most out of their instruments. Reach out to the General Instruments team today to ensure a comprehensive level measurement solution for your chemical industry operations.

Thermocouples are the planet’s most widely used temperature sensors due to their enormous temperature capabilities, reliability, and low cost. Thermocouples are used in home appliances, industrial processes, electric power generation, furnace monitoring, control, food and beverage processing, vehicle sensors, aviation engines, rockets, satellites, and spacecraft.

Thermocouples and RTDs contribute to improved final products by assisting in the optimisation of temperature management during the production process. Thermocouples are commonly employed to provide temperature measurements when high temperatures, compact size, quick responsiveness, significant vibration, or shock are present.

Food and beverage industry

The food and beverage industries use thermocouples for various purposes, including pasteurisation, refrigeration, fermentation, brewing, and bottling. When utilising a thermocouple temperature sensor, you don’t have to worry since it provides exact temperature readings for frying and cooking, ensuring your food is prepared correctly.

Thermocouples are often used in restaurant equipment such as grills, toasters, fryers, warmers, and ovens. In addition, thermocouples in the form of temperature-sensing probes are used in cooking equipment in large-scale food processing operations.

Thermocouples are also utilised in breweries since optimal fermentation and microbial contamination prevention require exact temperatures.

Metallurgy

The furnace conditions to which the thermocouple will be subjected aid in determining the best thermocouple for the application. 

Some of the requirements to consider while choosing a thermocouple are:

• The thermocouple wires’ temperature capacity.
• The temperature tolerance of the sheath or protective covering (metal or ceramic).
• The environment in which it will be employed (air, reducing, oxidising, inert).
• The mounting arrangement

Because of the extraordinarily high temperatures involved, determining an accurate temperature measurement for molten metals such as steel, zinc, and aluminium may be difficult. Types B, S, and R platinum thermocouples and Type K and N base metal thermocouples are the most often used temperature sensors for molten metals. The temperature range of your metal-related application would determine the best kind.

Plastic Manufacturing

Precision temperature control is required for manufacturing plastic items. Thermocouples are commonly used to monitor temperature during plastic production in various applications. They are used in diecasting moulds and injection to detect the melting or surface temperature.

In plastic processing, thermocouples are classified into two types. The thermocouple may be used to determine the transmission of plastic heat function based on their cross-section. The thermocouple must identify the applied force dissimilarity.

Temperature sensors may be everywhere, from injection moulding machines and extruders to thermoforming machines and pellet dryers.

Thermocouples can also be used to create items in the plastics industry. As a result, the second type of thermocouple used in the plastics sector comprises product design and engineering. The thermocouple must be used in product engineering to calculate temperature variations in materials, especially over the product’s shelf life.

Engineers can choose a thermocouple appropriate for the materials they want to employ in their products. They may also use the thermocouple to evaluate the design’s performance. This allows them to make modifications before beginning the manufacturing process.

Pharmaceutical Manufacturing

Fermentation, heating, granulation, mixing, filtering, chemical extraction, tabletting, compression, coating, and drying are all physical processes used in pharmaceutical manufacture. Many of these processes require the application or removal of heat, which thermocouples will monitor and transmit back to the process controllers.

RTDs will be utilised in place of thermocouples when temperature measurement is crucial, and high precision is required. As is always the case, the placement, structure, and configuration of these thermocouples will be determined by the specific application.

There are several varieties of thermocouples that have numerous uses in diverse sectors. Thus, whether you work in engineering services, steel fabrication, food and beverage, or plastics manufacturing, General Instruments thermocouples are likely to be frequently utilised to measure and monitor the temperature.

Are you ready to discover turnkey thermocouples suited for your application? Contact the General Instruments Consortium Team right now!

One of the most essential physical quantities in our surroundings is pressure. It plays an important role in industrial applications such as thermodynamics, aerodynamics, acoustics, fluid mechanics, soil mechanics, and biophysics.

Many automotive, medical, industrial, consumer, and construction technologies rely on accurate and consistent pressure readings to function successfully. This is because overpressure can deteriorate enclosures or drains and cause considerable damage to important equipment types.

Let us look at 5 such applications of analogue pressure sensors in the industry.

• Manufacturing Industry

Pressure sensor applications in the manufacturing industry continue to grow due to the demand for more tightly regulated processes and the accompanying quality control needs. The increased pressure and vacuum monitoring can detect the need for equipment repair before premature breakdowns create excessive downtime and raise manufacturing expenses.

Pressure sensors are increasingly used in applications such as bottle and equipment leak detection, Variable Air Volume (VAV) systems, air blades, compressed air pressure monitoring, industrial flow monitoring, filter pressure monitoring, duct airflow, gas detection, pneumatic controls, mine safety instrumentation, industrial degassers, and suction check in pick and place applications such as the printed circuit boards and semiconductor process equipment.

water

• Life-Saving Medical Applications

With the medical equipment market advancement, greater demands are placed on the usage of pressure sensors in the medical sector. Precision, reliability, stability, volume, and so on must be met.

Hyperbaric treatment increases the air pressure in a sealed container enclosing a patient. It may be used to treat various medical ailments, including skin grafts, burn injuries, carbon monoxide poisoning, and decompression sickness in divers.

Analogue pressure sensors have practical uses in catheter ablation and temperature sensor measurement. Thermodilution catheters, urethral catheters, oesophagal catheters, central venous catheters, and intracranial pressure vessels are all examples of catheters.

• Water Treatment Pressure Sensors

In wastewater management and water treatment facilities, pressure measurement is employed in filtration, system pressure, flow, and levels. Pressure sensors in this business must deliver reliable readings in corrosive materials, effluents, solids, vibration, and pulsation-prone situations.

They are utilised to monitor the system and offer vital information for proactive reaction to any odd situations that may emerge. Pressure sensors are essential in water supply and sewage treatment because they provide crucial control and monitoring for system protection and quality assurance.

Pressure sensors are used in aeration basins, chemical feeds, chlorination, chlorine removal and distribution, flocculation, raw material inlets, mixing vessels, pumping stations, sedimentation operations, and storage activities. Products designed for this business must be accurate and dependable across multiple pressure cycles. They must be able to measure pressures ranging from vacuum to 1,000 bar or more.

• Petrochemical Applications

The pressure sensor is one of the most often used measurement devices in the petrochemical sector for control. Almost all pressure sensor applications are included in large-scale chemical projects: differential pressure, absolute pressure, gauge pressure, high pressure, micro differential pressure, high temperature, low temperature, and remote transmission flange pressure sensors of various materials and special processing.

Pressure sensors are in great demand in the petrochemical sector for three reasons:

• Dependability 
• Stability 
• High accuracy

Because of the way a refinery is structured, a pressure sensor may be hundreds of feet away from the control system to which it is connected, necessitating a long cable run to connect. 

These cable lines serve as great antennas for picking up EMI/RFI/ESD signals from nearby cabling and machines. However, this electrical “noise” can overpower, distort, or corrupt high-impedance analogue signals in the connection. Hence, analogue systems are recommended for such applications.

• Energy Efficiency

In 2021, the industrial sector placed a renewed emphasis on energy efficiency. With energy costs rising at an alarming rate, such concentration is now financially and morally imperative.

This has naturally transferred to the items that industrial enterprises require to ensure maximum functioning while minimising expenses. The onus is on product makers across the sector to constantly innovate in order to fulfill the needs of a changing business landscape.

Analogue pressure sensor measurements are required for improved energy conservation in portable and stationary weather stations, diesel truck emissions testing devices, wind energy systems, wind engineering in relation to new building design aerodynamics, ocean research, high-altitude weather research balloons, water pollution devices, smoke stack mercury sampling, and atmospheric studies.

Why analogue pressure sensors?

If the present system is based on analogue control, one advantage of adopting analogue pressure sensors is the ease of setup. 

An analogue sensor connected to an analogue-to-digital (ADC) converter would be a simpler alternative for detecting dynamic processes than a digital pressure sensor, which requires a specific protocol to establish communication with the device. 

Pure analogue pressure sensors are ideal for system electronics that require very quick active feedback control loops.

Are you searching for pressure sensor solutions for your industrial application? General Instruments offer a wide range of NABL-certified pressure measurement instruments designed for the highest performing accuracy. Get in touch with General Instruments now.

Controlling the liquid level in a reactor, tank, or other vessels accurately is critical in various industrial applications. The container must be fitted with equipment that offers constant and precise level readings to ensure the profitability and safety of industrial activities.

Inaccurate measurement leads to dangerously low or high levels in silos/vessels. While low levels cause damage to the equipment, high levels result in overflow and safety issues. 

Radar Level Transmitters: Industrial Applications

As a concept, RADAR (Radio Detection and Ranging) is still evolving in industrial ‘level measuring’ applications. RADAR detects things within its range by achieving a reflection of electromagnetic waves sent by the instrument, calculating the precise time delay of reflection, and translating the reading into the level measurement.

Because of their adaptability and excellent safety, even when subjected to extreme pressure and temperature, radar-level transmitters are recommended for continuously monitoring solids such as stones, granules, fly ash, flakes, and powders.

Accurate radar-level transmitters are employed in essential engineering situations. These transmitters or level sensors have the following industrial uses:

• Mining

Radar Level transmitters are used in the mining industry to verify the depth or length of mines, as well as the level of the ore’s surface. Depending on the air composition, even ultrasonic radar technology attachment may be employed.

• Boilers

Due to extremely high water and stream temperatures, measuring fluid levels in boilers is particularly challenging. Guided wave radar level sensors are employed in such instances. Since they are contactless & top-mounted, these guided probes are not affected by high temperatures. As a result, they are employed as fuel or fluid level indicators in boiler technology.

• Aeronautics

In the automotive industry, gasoline levels are frequently measured with contact type indicators. On the other hand, a fuel storage system is a little more complicated in aviation. As a result, radar level transmitters are employed.

• Paper and Pulp

These level transmitters are used in the paper and pulp industries to measure the level of slurry, water, and storage tanks. Because guided probes may be utilized in chemical environments, they are an excellent choice for the paper and pulp industries.

• Bore Digging

Level transmitters are exposed to mud, slurry, and undersurface gases throughout the bore digging operation. Therefore, such instances use contactless radar level indicators to check surface levels.

Radar Level Transmitters: Why Should You Switch?

The following are the advantages of utilising a General Radar Level Transmitter over alternative level measurement technologies:

1. Accurate Level Measurement up to 30 meters.
2. Suitable for both solid and liquid materials.
3. Ability to Remote Monitor in hazardous applications such as Oil & Gas, Chemicals, Pains & Coatings to sterilised environments such as Pharmaceutical and Food & Beverage industries.
4. Even in rapidly changing levels, accurate and dependable level measurement with a high signal-to-noise ratio is possible.
5. Because of the limited beam angle, the angle of repose is unaffected.
6. Suitable for dusty environments and changing silo process conditions.
7. Non-contact, with no moving parts, requires less maintenance or calibration.
8. Top-mounted, simple installation and retrofit
9. HART 7 o/p is simple to set up.
10. Built-in surface profile settings avoid misleading readings caused by tank impediments.

General Instruments is a leading provider of high-quality, cutting-edge Radar Level Measurement sensors in different configurations, according to your need. 

General is well-known for offering a diverse selection of high-quality radar level measurement devices and IIoT-based monitoring solutions. With an established legacy of 56 years, you can trust us with quality, reliability and excellence.

Send us an email at info@general-gauges.com or call 022-24454387.

Level gauges are sensing and measuring devices used to monitor the level of a fluid in a tank or other storage container. These instruments are commonly used in industrial process applications to monitor fluid levels in drums, tanks, pressure vessels, and other similar applications.

The gauge comprises numerous pieces, including a head, float, measuring tape, bottom anchored bracket, guide wires, elbows, anchors, coupler, pipe support brackets, and pipework.

Level gauges have various benefits, including tolerating high pressure, temperature, and vibrations in difficult situations. They can be used in conjunction with a switch or alarm in a system and are easily read from a distance. They need minimum maintenance, may be repaired without disrupting the system, and can be tailored for demanding applications.

Level gauges are frequently used when a direct physical measurement of the fluid’s level is either impossible or impractical, such as when the fluid being measured is toxic, or the tank or vessel carrying the liquid is sealed and under pressure.

How do Level Gauges work?

There are multiple varieties of level gauges, and describing them may be done by the underlying technical principle or by the intended use. 

Level devices operate under three different main principles:

1. The position (height) of the liquid surface
2. The pressure head
3. The weight of the material

The following are examples of popular types of level gauges:

• Reflex level gauges

The functioning concept of reflex glass level gauges is based on light refraction and reflection principles.

Reflex glass level gauges employ glasses with the face configured to feature prismatic grooves with a section angle of 90°. When the chamber is in use, it is filled with liquid in the lower section and gasses or vapors in the top part.

The liquid level is shown by the varied brightness of the glass in the liquid and gas/vapour zones. The reflex level gauges do not require any special lighting. The level may be seen in the daylight.

Applications 

• A low-cost and straightforward way of determining the fluid level in a tank or vessel
• Useful for transparent liquids that are difficult to view directly

Reflex level gauges cannot be utilized when reading the separation level between two liquids, for example.

It is also not the best choice when the process fluid is high-pressure water steam since mica shields must be used to protect the glass from the solvent action of the boiler water.

• Transparent level gauges

Transparent level gauges are always equipped with two plate transparent glasses that contain the fluid. The fluid level is displayed as a result of the two media’s varying transparency.

Transparent Level Gauges with Mica shields can be used to protect glass surfaces from the corrosive action of the process fluid. Transparent level gauges are especially useful in applications where the glass must be protected from corrosive substances and high temperatures.

Applications:

• For corrosive fluids
• For observation of the interface
• For observation of the liquid color
• For steam with an operating pressure > 20 bar
• For repeated thermal shocks

• Magnetic level gauges

The Magnetic Level Gauge is utilized for leak detection, environmental safety, and trouble-free use with chemically aggressive, pollutant, dangerous or toxic, combustible or explosive fluid interfaces.

The gauges work on the Archimedes Principle, which asserts that every item immersed in a fluid receives the same buoyant force as the weight of the displaced liquid. Magnetic level gauges are exceptionally robust and can be utilized when glass gauges crack or are destroyed.

Applications

• For chemically aggressive fluid
• For environment pollutants
• For inflammable or explosive fluid
• For working temperatures up to 4000°C
• For environmental pressure range of 220 bar

Conclusion

There are several level indicators available to meet the requirements of various applications. Fluids are commonly employed in a variety of ways in highly commercial businesses. Determining the amount and level of fluid stored will be extremely difficult without the correct tools.

Also, in cases where the nature of the fluid is hazardous or the location in which the liquid is held such that physically locating the level is impossible, level indicators are critical.

Choose different types of Level Gauges at General Instruments according to your desired application. We are here to deliver customized solutions perfect for your use.