Veolia uses Terabee industrial-grade thermal camera solution
The problem
Veolia contacted Terabee for a solution to monitor temperature inside high voltage electrical cabinets, in order to understand and manage overheating of certain components and prevent fire ignition.
Says Francois Reboul-Salze, Head of Innovation, South region, France, Veolia, “We were after a system which could be easily deployed and expanded. It needed to be both usable and scalable to several Veolia sites.
“We have many electrical cabinets with high power components, such as power cables with large electrical current and heat dissipation. So Veolia was looking for a PLC-based monitoring system to monitor temperature hotspots in these components and raise alarms in an integrated system that collects all sensor information in a centralized dashboard.”
The Terabee solution
Terabee devised a solution to use several IND-Thermal-90 cameras – lightweight, compact industrial-grade thermal cameras – on one RS485 network to monitor additional temperatures, while using an industrial PLC and a classic industrial automation communication protocol (Modbus). Moreover, the camera features a digital output which is triggered by the embedded applications for temperature breach detection.
The flexibility of this kind of bus network infrastructure allows simultaneous monitoring of electrical cabinets in an industrial environment. The IND-Thermal-90 wide field of view of 90° x 90°, is ideal to monitor a large surface when the distance between the door of the electrical cabinets and the components to monitor is reduced. For example, at 50 cm distance, the monitoring surface is 1 m x 1 m.
The affordable unit cost of the IND-Thermal-90 and the absence of interference between the devices are key to creating modular solutions. IND-Thermal-90 can guarantee accurate performance levels comparable to higher-end, more expensive devices.
Veolia and Terabee cooperation
The system was validated at one of Veolia’s plants. Terabee has produced an operational user manual and made the solution scalable to different Veolia plants.
“I met Terabee at the Barcelona Fair last year. When I saw these cameras on the Terabee stand with a 32 by 32 thermal monitoring grid, I thought that it could be very interesting for us as a company to be able to monitor the heat inside our electrical cabinets,” explains Francois Reboul-Salze. “The camera itself gives us the opportunity to measure the temperature within the electrical cabinet and tell us, which is the higher temperature and when it goes over a programmable threshold, which is what we wanted.”
About Terabee IND-Thermal-90
Terabee IND-Thermal-90 is a low-resolution infrared thermal camera with high accuracy and a low unit cost, so customers can install several IND-Thermal-90, even on the same communication bus, with minimum investment.
Vincenzo Forte, Product and Project Manager, Terabee, says, “In the spirit of Industry 4.0, IND-Thermal-90 embeds different applications where temperatures can be measured and processed already inside the camera, for example measurements averaged in space and time. Contactless surface temperature monitoring in electrical cabinets enables predictive maintenance and early fire detection.”
“For this solution, it was vital to build efficient, remote customer support. As well, 24 x 7 monitoring is needed to detect short thermal spikes, which are undetectable to human monitoring. They risk creating a fire or an interruption in the plant operations,” said Vincenzo Forte.
TERABEE IND-THERMAL-90 KEY FEATURES
- Small, lightweight and easy to mount
- Advanced Thermopile technology enables the camera to operate over a wide temperature range
- Thermal image outputs, enabled by onboard storage of raw temperature pixels on Modbus registers
- Modbus RS485 interface
- NO/NC for event triggers, alarms, emergency stop
- Embedded intelligence (EDGE processing) enables simple data processing and local feedback loops that can eliminate the need for analysis on PLC
Terabee IND-Thermal-90 solution for Veolia: Industrial heat monitoring
The following images show the steps needed to set up a heat monitoring system inside an electrical cabinet at the Veolia plant.
- Set up of IND-Thermal-90 and alignment of camera field of view with, in ellipse, to include the cable hotpoint inside the target surface
Image 1. Set up IND-Thermal-90 and target surface in ellipse (cable Hotpoint)
2. IND-Thermal-90 GUI for Windows/Linux, for alignment and setup with expected hotpoint and to check warm-up cycle
Image 2. GUI to alignment on expected hotpoint and check of warm-up cycle
3. Multiple Terabee IND-Thermal-90 cameras were connected on the same bus to the Veolia factory PLC, example image, and to the IT automation network
Image 3. Multiple IND-Thermal-90 cameras were connected on the same bus to the Veolia factory plc (indicative picture) and to the it automation network
Image 4. Monitoring of temperature measurements from three IND-Thermal-90 cameras in the PLC software suite
5. The Veolia team could then easily integrate the Terabee IND-Thermal-90 cameras into the supervision system of the plant and see temperature hotpoint evolution. A typical thermal cycle of the target hotpoint is shown here. Please note that, as demonstrated during the product validation phase with other customers, the IND-Thermal-90 hotspot temperature evolution, shown in red, is as accurate as external industrial thermal cameras, magenta.
Image 5. Finally, the Veolia team could easily integrate the IND-Thermal-90 cameras into the supervision system of the plant and see hotpoint temperature evolution.
Want to know more?
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