At the request of the Sherwin-Williams Co. Chemical Coatings Division, 6D Testing & Analysis was asked to develop a turn-key non-contact measurement system for the Puro-Save VOC concentrator media wheel. (The concentrator captures pollutants from the plant ventilation system and is critical to EPA compliance.)
Project Goal
The goal of the project is to design and implement a process to capture physical measurements that will convey, in real time, the axial position of the wheel. This data will alert Sherwin-Williams to position changes that may result in failure. It was also desired to keep a record of the block position of time.
Background
The request is due to a past event with the VOC concentrator that resulted in a catastrophic failure of the media wheel. The event was created by media blocks becoming loose and shifting out of position in the axial direction. Once displaced, one or more blocks were too far out of position to pass by the face seal and seal support structure. The seal structure became an obstruction and ultimately failed causing damage to the media blocks. Consequently replacement of the media blocks came at great expense from both repair costs and plant down time.