Solving Power Quality issues and implementing continuous optimisation with MFED at Mannesmann

Solving Power Quality issues and implementing continuous optimisation with MFED at Mannesmann

Mannesmann Precision Tubes Netherlands, located in Helmond, produces cold-drawn seamless steel precision tubes. Mannesmann is the only manufacturer of these tubes, which are supplied to the chemical and petrochemical industry, the automotive industry and machine construction, in the Netherlands.

A big advantage of the MFED is the fact that I don’t need to go to the installation every time to check up on how everything is doing. I can now monitor all that accurately from a distance. And I can always call on HyTEPS to examine the data together.
Walther van Boekel, Installation Manager Mannesmann
Safeguard production
Prevent ageing and damage
Prevent compressor tripping 
Improve Cos Phi

Challenge

“We have eight enormous machines here,” says Installation Manager Walther van Boekel, who has worked for Mannesmann since 1989. “If one of them were to break down, our production capacity would be drastically reduced. That is definitely something we cannot afford! We had notice that when our compressors were running at low speed and the extrusion machine was running at full speed, the air compressors would trip. I suspected there might be an issue with harmonics and  wanted to know the cause and how to solve the breakdown of the air compressors and whether there were any reasons for the breakdown or accelerated ageing of other machines. They carried out measurements to determine the exact nature of the problem and the cause. It turned out that there was a great deal of harmonic pollution on our network.”

Objectives

  • Determine the cause of compressor issues
  • Determine the cause of other failures and accelerated aging of the machines
  • Implement a suitable solution
  • Monitor power factor correction device, active harmonic filters and other hardware
  • Ongoing advice and optimization

Solution

“We carried out extensive measurements,” says Anil Kumar, Electrical Engineer at HyTEPS. ” There were notches, introduced in the voltage waveform by six pole rectifiers used for DC drives, resulting in polluted voltage and current waveforms. This distortion resulted in surges in Total Harmonic Distortion in Voltage whenever the machines were operated. This high distortion in voltage increases the risk of machine failure, accelerated aging or wearing of the machines, and fire hazards. We traced these very accurately. We found that failure of the air compressors and accelerated aging would be greatly reduced if harmful harmonic pollution was compensated by means of an Active Harmonic Filter. In addition, we recommend a fast-reacting (thyristor-controlled) capacitor bank which can react quickly during extrusion, because it is precisely then that a lot of reactive power is extracted from the mains. This causes power factor to severely dip, leading to reduced operational capacity and increases losses in the system.

We then introduced a power factor correction device to improve power factor at transformer level and active harmonic filters to filter out all pollution from the current and voltage. This keeps the power factor optimal – which is especially important in this case – there are many loads that consume a large amount of reactive power.”

A HyTEPS Multifunctional Energy Device – MFED – has also been implemented. This allows the status of the new equipment to be continuously monitored, as well as that of other devices connected to the network. In this way, both Walther and HyTEPS can react quickly if anything remarkable happens. Up-to-date data on all power quality factors is always available. This enables Mannesmann to better plan expansions and adaptations and expand the network in the smartest way possible. HyTEPS can monitor all Power Quality parameters and analyze data. Also, more capacity can be obtained from the existing installation and system components can be used in a smarter way.

Results

Walther: “A big advantage of the MFED is the fact that I don’t need to go to the installation every time to check up on how everything is doing. I can now monitor all that accurately from a distance. And I can always call on HyTEPS to examine the data together.”

“The frequency at which the drives work is now no longer polluted. It was also interesting for us to see that increased use of LED lighting was to be a major source of problems. LED lamps are now no longer breaking down on regularly! The PLCs aren’t malfunctioning, and the frequency inverters aren’t troubled by harmonics. HyTEPS has improved the power factor and Cosinus Phi quite a bit and has identified and solved our problem.”

 

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