Recoiler Safety Upgrade
Arndell Park, NSW
History had shown that the recoiling step in the coating process at OneSteel had a number of hazards, most notably the fact that the nearby operators would get trapped in the coil. Although no injuries had been reported, OneSteel’s Risk Assessment procedures had identified this as a ‘high priority’ issue to guard against.
A concept was devised to remove the operator from the recoil machine area by installing an automated roller door. However, the operator still needed access to secure the completed roll and to extract the coil for shipment. This meant that the operator needed to enter the hazardous area and have the ability to jog the recoiler so he could strap and remove the coil easily.
AM Electrical was asked to supply a solution that allowed access and control, yet did not expose the operators to the identified hazards. The company enlisted Victoria-based Pilz Safe Automation, which suggested implementing the PNOZ Multi with speed monitoring module.
“The PNOZ Multi gave me so much flexibility to set zero speed detection, jog speed and overspeed that the solution actually became really simple,” said Marcus from AM Electrical. “All we needed to do was wire in the encoder feedback in the Multi and the rest was done in the configurator.”
Interfacing into the existing Siemens S7 PLC on-site was done with safe outputs from the PNOZ Multi which would not allow the PLC to go into full speed, and if the PLC failed and an overspeed condition was detected, and the Multi would remove power from the large recoiler drives directly. In combination with PSEN Code gate switches mounted on the recoiler entry door, the Multi safely guaranteed that the operator could never access the machine while at full speed, and yet allowed the operator to safely jog the machine so he could remove the coil for shipment.
“The PNOZ Multi was straightforward to install and program, and had all the functionality straight-from-the-box to complete this application. In fact, with one Multi and one speed monitor, we were able to independently monitor two recoilers, which saved us a great deal of money and time,” said Marcus.
Also impressed with the solution was Coil Coaters operations manegr, Arthur Crampton.“It just works!” he said. “We run these machines 96 hours at a stretch without stopping, so we don’t have the luxury of taking a recoiler offline to troubleshoot.”