iFace Plant Automation - No Man Operation
Intelligent Fully Automatic Controlled Equipment
With the iFACE, several chamber furnaces can be controlled.
With starting of a heat treatment program, the entire information is sent to the programmable controller (PLC) of the furnace plant. Afterwards, the iFACE system controls the program sequence and sends the standard values to the PLC. This passes the standard values on to the compact controller. The current actual values of temperature and C-level are recorded to the iFACE system. The program sequence can be viewed on-line via operator panel.
If there were a loss of the iFACE system during a heat treatment, then the PLC of the furnace plant immediately takes over the programmer function and the program can be continued without interruption.
iFACE system contains the following program items in its basic version:
• OFF-LINE diffusion program (Can be offered optionally)
For simulation and optimization of carburising programs.
• Program management
Input of different heat treatment programs, whereby the program sequence can be divided into up to 10 sections. Option of time and target size control.
• Part data bank
Allocation of the individual heat treatment programs for certain parts.
• Programmer
Standard value of temperature and C-potential are preset according to the heat treatment program data and indicated graphically.
• ON-LINE diffusion program (Can be offered optionally)
During a carburising program, the current carburizing profile with the carbon process can be indicated and printed at any time.
At programs with target size control, the carbon process in the heat treatment material is calculated with the recorded actual values and controlled according to the target size.
• Heat treatment reports
Is available for each charge. It is stored on the hard disk and can be shown on the screen and printed at any time. It contains the heat treatment program in tabular form with all relevant part data, the standard and actual values of C-potential and temperatures in graphic form for the entire process duration, as well as the calculated carbon process in the parts in tabular form and graphical trends.
• Service programs
Calculation of the alloy factor from the composition of the material.
Different conversion functions such as C-levels in probe tension, CO content, etc.
• Failure handling
Indication of failure alarms in clear text with time stamp with starts and end time.
• Help texts
The existing help texts offer valuable support with operation.
Beyond that, there is however still a multiplicity of development stages of the process control system, which can be extended up to the controlling of a fully automated multi-purpose chamber furnace plant. Then, not only the multipurpose chamber furnaces are controlled, but all ancillary units get the defaults from the iFACE, so that the complete treatment cycle of a charge is accomplished automatically. The operation of the plant is limited to charging/discharging of the storage guide rails. In addition to the already described program items, there is still another multiplicity of software modules such as teleservice, SMS notification (optional) or extended heat treatment proof with laboratory minutes, which can be adapted to the respective customer requirements.