Welcome back to the automation podcast. Sean Tierney
here from Insights and Automation, and I wanna
thank you for tuning back in. This week
on the show, I meet up with Lawton
Rushford from Endress and Hauser to learn all
about the latest innovations
in Coriolis flow meters. And I also wanna
thank Endress and Hauser for sponsoring this episode
so I could bring it to you completely
ad free. With that said, if you're interested
in learning about what's the latest in technology
used in Coriolis flow meters, I think you'll
enjoy this episode. I know I did. And
with that, let's go ahead and jump right
into this week's show. I wanna welcome to
the show,
Lawton from
Endress and Hauser. Lawton, it's great to have
you on. This is the first time you're
on the show. We plus, we've had your
company on before. But, Lawton, if you don't
mind, could you, before we jump into Coriolis
flow meters, which is an extremely important technology
in our industry, could you first introduce yourself
to our audience?
Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you. My name is Lawton
Rushford.
I am the flow product marketing manager here
at Anderson Hauser,
based in Greenwood, Indiana, which is about twenty
minutes south of Indianapolis, Indiana
at our, national headquarters,
for Anderson Hauser. I've been with Anderson Hauser
for seven years now,
a whole bunch of different roles, but, for
the last three years, I've been in this
role,
a flow marketing manager.
Today,
I I really wanted to highlight a couple
of awesome innovations that we've had in Coriolis
flow technology,
over the last,
we'll see, about year or so,
because I think there's a lot of, use
cases and a lot of awesome,
insights we can get from from our Coriolis
flow meters. And,
yeah. So I guess we can we can
kick it off. I did wanna highlight Anderson
Hauser as the the manufacturer that I work
for, and we have a history,
a long history of, of innovation. And so
I'm gonna kinda highlight that,
initially,
talk about what sort of portfolio we have
currently with our Coriolis flow meters,
and then talk about a couple of new
cool things that that we have released over
the last couple of couple of months.
And then finish off with, what we call
heartbeat technology. It's our advanced diagnostic system in
all of our flow meters and all of
our products across the board.
It started with flow.
So I think there's a lot of you
cool use cases, and I'll I'll highlight a
couple of those as well. And then, of
course, Sean is the the audience here. Anytime
there's questions or anything, please feel free to
to let me know, and I can I
can try and address them as they come
up?
Sounds good. Yeah. Awesome. Great.
So I guess our first Coriolis meter that
we introduced into the market was back in,
1986.
So it's been some time. As you can
tell by the the slide here, there's a
lot of different designs of Coriolis flowmeters.
There isn't one right way to do it,
but I think that the way that Anderson
Houser has approached
innovation is is pretty pretty awesome and pretty
impressive.
Everything from a single tube,
design to a dual tube design,
dual straight tube design versus a dual bent
tube design. There are a lot of different
types of Coriolis meters out on the market,
and we'll talk about a couple of, differentiators
that we that, Anderson Hauser has
on, on some products that we've recently released.
You know, just by looking at the, the
slide here, the one that, like, really attracts
my eye is the ProMASS. That's the one
that I I think I've seen the most
in the field. Yep. Yep. You know, walking
around the different plants, and, that was launched
in 1998.
So that's been out for quite some time.
So just wanted to throw that out there
for those listening. That may be the one
you've seen the most of as in your
in your travels.
Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. There's a lot of a
lot of ProMasses out there. Our endpoint was
the first one, but,
shortly after that, we released our ProMasses. And
we've just been you know, we've we've had
a lot of iterations, which I think is
also part of the
impressive thing in terms of innovation that Anderson
Hauser continues to
to to, do in terms of research and
development on that. And the one that I
always think about is is the the one
that kinda looks like a UFO.
That is our ProMASS X. It's a high
capacity, large diameter,
Coriolis meter with four tubes in there. So
it's kind of bent two separate sys systems
and then put together in one,
large device, and I always I always think
that one's cool because it kinda looks like
a like something out of Star Wars or
something. Yep. Yep.
So, yep, so I I think that's that's
really, really cool. There's a lot of new
things that we've released, and this is, I
mean, this is a short
timeline of of some of the innovations that
we have. But,
you know, over the last year or so,
we've we've definitely invested a little bit more,
into
specific applications,
and that kind of leads us into our
entire portfolio
of Coriolis flow meters.
We have 17 different sensors.
So that is not
a normal thing in the industry.
I I think that
to some people, it it can be confusing
if you're looking at them all at the
same time, a little overwhelming.
But I I think it's really important that
I that I kind of
talk about this in terms of every application
that we look at.
We're not trying to put one flow meter
into that application.
We're taking the application and the requirements of
that application and designing a device that's meant
for it.
So,
in certain applications, you may not
have to choose between 17 different sensors. You
really have probably two or three that you're
trying to to decide between and weigh,
both pressure drop, accuracy,
density
specifications, things like that that that will ultimately
give you the the best meter for that
application. But we we don't wanna take a
an approach of trying to,
cram a a sensor into an application. We
would prefer to design the sensor in and
meant for certain applications.
So
it does I guess there's two questions on
here. Why so many sensors? Well, because we
wanna design our our sensors for specific applications.
There's a lot of different applications out there.
Doesn't that make it confusing? Well, of course,
it makes it a little confusing if you're
looking at it from from the high level
17 different sensors.
But,
every application that we look at, we're we're
trying to,
there's a lot of different requirements of of
applications in oil and gas versus life sciences,
and we wanted to design sensors that fit
the market and fit the application that they're
supposed to go into.
And in general, all of them work the
exact same way.
As a as a general rule of thumb,
your Coriolis flow meter measurements are
mass flow, density, and temperature as a as
a starting point.
We'll talk about a couple of features that
we've started adding to some of our flow
meters that that,
create more of a multivariable
device. Instead of just measuring those three things,
we can add viscosity or,
we can do other things or concentration,
things like that, with the meters.
But in general, the mass flow is is
using,
the phase shift between your inlet and outlet
pickup coils
and taking that into account to relate it
directly to the amount of mass that's within
those tubes.
And then similarly, as the tubes are oscillating,
a more dense fluid is going to have
a lower resonant frequency.
And based around resonant frequencies, we can understand
how dense the fluid is inside of the,
inside of those flow tubes.
And then we also have on every single
one of our Coriolis flow meters,
PT 1,000,
temperature probe that's attached directly to the inside
of the, the outside of the tube
within the secondary containment,
for additional values,
additional multivariable,
use uses. I mean,
for for example, on a on a concentration
measurement,
really what you're using is density and temperature
in conjunction,
to relate that to a concentration.
So that's something that that we would that
that would add to the use cases for
for a a Coriolis
flow meter.
And one of the the
current biggest innovations that we've had recently is
with our our ProMaths queue.
The ProMaths queue is a a little bit
of a different design than some of the
other ProMasses that you may have seen on
on some previous slides.
We actually,
have a little bit,
longer tube that's, has a more
harsher bend in it. Mhmm. The reason for
that is because what we're trying to do
is we're trying to oscillate these two sensors
or these two
flow tubes at two at the same frequency,
but in two different modes. So in multiple
frequencies,
at the same time.
So, essentially, what we're doing is our our
historic
use of a a pro mass meter is
kind of in that that top
visual
where we're oscillating in one frequency,
and one one specific frequency depending on the
fluid that's going through it. And then on
the at the bottom, we show an additional
mode of oscillation, so an additional frequency that
we're oscillating at that gives us additional information
for, specifically
challenging applications.
So in in in a lot of these
cases, what we what we see
in most of these applications is,
a lot of whipped products,
purposeful entrainment of of air into into,
applications.
So cement in general, let's say, as an
example, we can start there. Well cement, you're
it's aerated all the time. So as you
are are moving that cement around,
air pockets can be filled in inside of
that cement
and can cause challenges
as most things with air cause challenges, especially
as as you're moving into a multiphase fluid.
Anytime you have one or more than one
fluid phase within the the the meter, the
meter can is it's it's almost like, the
meter is kind of confused.
It it's not really sure what it's supposed
to be reading and what it is reading
and why it's reading that.
So with with multi frequency technology, we can
actually
compensate
internally compensate because we're oscillating in two modes.
We can compensate for the air that's present
and give a,
a corrected mass flow and a corrected,
density.
So Right. A lot of milk milk applications,
cream cheese,
well cement, anything like
that. That's awesome. Could you back up one
slide for a second? Sure. Sure. I just
I find this so interesting, but I I
know that the audience, not everybody's on the
same page.
So I think this would be a great
slide. Could you just, like, vary what the
basic
the basic
operation of
a Coriolis flow meter is? Okay. We know
we're trying to measure typically the flow rate,
the flow rate. Right?
And, you know, there's all these variables that
go into it. But could you really just,
you know, give us the the introductory,
you know, how does this thing work?
Sure. So there are exciters,
if if you will, or vibrating
electronics
that's going to oscillate those flow tubes. Okay.
And they're gonna
if there's no flow in it, the oscillation
is going
to basically be,
very in line, in sync. Your tubes are
going to move out and then move in.
And,
again, it's these are a little exaggerated in
terms of videos, but the actual tubes will
will start vibrating, almost like a tuning fork
or you hit a wine glass on the
side of a table and you get the
vibration out of the wine glass. That's kind
of the same vibration that's happening.
And now as we start flowing product
through those flow tubes,
we get these these waves that are created.
And the inlet and outlet pickup coil are
now not in sync,
meaning that we're using the Coriolis force or
we're essentially looking at a phase shift
as those
tubes start to create those waves,
where where there's a time difference between the
inlet and the outlet pickup coil. And that
time difference is ultimately what's related to phase
shift, which is ultimately what's related to that
mass flow that's inside the tubes.
Similarly, as we're oscillating those tubes, if we
have
water going through that,
those tubes, well, we know what the resonant
frequency should be of water.
We also know what the resonant frequency is
of a more dense or a lighter,
less dense fluid. So now we can start
understanding
what the density is specifically as well. So
that's where kind of the multivariable,
measurements happen within the flow tube.
But, essentially, all of it's based around a
time measurement. It's all based around
when does this,
this pickup coil pick up this tube, and
when does this pickup,
outlet pickup coil pick up the the tube
coming back.
Yep.
Yeah. And so we talked about the ProMASQ
having two modes
because when the liquids or, you know, like,
the substance, like cement or dairy, you know,
cream or whatnot, have a lot of ear
in it, that could be a challenge. So
you have this other mode.
We also talked about having a,
the temperature sensor thermocouple built in. Mhmm. Is
is temperature always and I know I'm asking
a lot of crazy questions here, but is
temperature always a factor? Because I can see
definitely products operate very differently than based on
the temperature. Is temperature always a factor in,
coming up with the calculation?
So, typically,
temperature is going to affect
not only the fluid.
It's also going to affect the properties of
the tubes themselves.
So that's something that's often overlooked. And and
when when we're when we're looking at applications,
yes, we care about what the the
the temperature of the fluid is because,
the density of that fluid may change.
There may be more or less mass flow
depending,
on,
how close a pump is. There's a lot
of installation effects as well. But, ultimately, the
the
as those tubes are oscillating, if you're if
the temperature is low enough or the temperature
is high enough, those tubes are have the
potential to move more or
less Yeah. As you're oscillating them. So that's
where temperature plays a really big factor, not
only in in measuring temperature, that's a great
added value, but also in
the,
the thermal,
properties of the actual tube's
material themselves.
Thank you for taking my questions. I just
find this interesting.
Yeah. Oh, that's that's great. That's a great
question. That is something that that isn't really
thought about, but,
we always we always have to take that
into account. And and that's part of,
ensuring that
the
the stated accuracy, their specifications
of the device are met throughout the entire,
temperature range of the meter's specification. So if
we know that we're gonna be operating,
this meter is rated for negative 40 degrees
f to
300 degrees f, well, we have to make
sure that we understand
how the tubes will react
throughout that entire range. And that's that again
goes back to that innovation that goes back
to the research and development that goes into
the design of these sensors.
So,
a lot of important things there.
So with that, I guess there's there's another
added value that that comes into play when,
we talk about oscillating
that Pro Mask Q at a,
at two modes.
There's actually an additional
effect that happens to the tubes,
And as those tubes because of how long
those tubes are, as the tubes start oscillating,
at the end of their oscillation, at their
maximum amplitude of oscillation,
you get a slight twisting motion in the
tubes themselves.
And so we have a device that is
called our ProMass I
that
directly measures,
viscosity
directly out of the meter.
And that is using a similar,
a similar technology
in a torsional oscillation mode. Whereas the ProMAS
Q, just by nature of design, actually has
some slight twisting motions.
So, you know, our our r and d
g experts and geniuses over,
over over overseas,
they they came up with this idea. Well,
why couldn't we
do a similar thing with our ProMask Q?
Why couldn't we look at how much shear
we're placing on the fluid or how much
twisting we're placing on the on the fluid
and understand maybe a little bit more about
the individual properties of that fluid that's going
through the meter?
And that's where
the oscillation
the the torsional oscillation or the rotational oscillation,
of that that flow tube can give us
a little bit more insight into
the viscosity
of the fluid itself.
And so this is where kind of another
innovation, which is on the ProMascue,
the hydrocarbon viscosity monitoring.
We do what's called
we stated it's for hydrocarbon viscosity, and the
reason for that is because
hydrocarbons have a very known,
viscosity profile across all different pressures and and
temperatures.
And so we can we can
verify on water and ensure
that the meter is going to
react properly,
and and maintain the accuracy that we stated
it's going to have. And, again, this is
a monitoring point. It's not necessarily
a calibrated point.
It is plus or minus 10% accuracy,
which isn't very high, but it's it's enough
to where you can start seeing when you
have the difference between a very heavy crude
oil and
water or a very light crude oil or,
like, light hydrocarbon.
And the repeatability is ultimately where where the
the use case comes in. So this is
one of the highlights that I wanted to
to point out because
I think not only on the monitoring side,
it gives us more values, it gives us
more information on on what's happening inside the
meter,
without us having to open up the meter,
and and or open up the the pipe
and and look at it.
So a couple of applications, typically you're gonna
see them both, in all parts of oil
and gas, which is upstream, midstream, and downstream,
all the way into,
refining products.
A lot of these applications,
in in midstream, especially in pipelines,
is going to be the addition of some
sort of drag reducing agent.
So we can understand
as adding that as we start adding that
drag reducing agent into
pipelines,
how much effect is it actually having?
Are we changing the properties enough of the
product, or is it, are we not changing
it? Are we changing it too much? It
gives us, more of a,
a qualitative
understanding of the product that's going through the
meter.
So
and, you know, I'd I'd mentioned earlier, you
know, we do,
a lot of industries, but, you know, I
guess the two completely opposite industries would be
something like oil and gas and,
life sciences or pharmaceutical,
And that kind of plays into this transition
here into our,
ProMASS U.
This is our,
is a relatively new product, that we've had
out for
less than a year at this point.
But our ProMASS U is our single use
Coriolis technology.
In a lot of pharmaceutical applications, there's a
lot of challenges in terms of cleaning,
in terms of making sure that there's no
risk of cross contamination.
And the biggest thing with that
is,
the introduction
of
single use production.
So taking
cells, biology,
all the way through to a,
a marketed medicine or a product, but using
all single use products.
And that saves on risk for cross contamination,
especially in large factories.
And,
it also actually does save
some money because of the amount of chemicals
and and cleaning that has to go on
in a lot of these pharmaceutical companies.
A single use technology
kinda fits the need in in that industry
very, very well. So what I'm looking at
here is it looks like a a lab
tabletop
type device
Yep. And the the u, right, the the
the pipes
is replaceable. So Yes. It looks like a
cartridge where you would, like, you know, turn
a lever. You could let's say you ran
product one
and you ran that for a while and
then you're done. You would turn this lever,
release the cartridge, pull it out, and those
pipes don't have to be cleaned.
They can be disposed of. And now you
put in your new one, and you can
run a different product. And we all know,
like, a few years ago, we all heard
the horror stories of a pharmaceutical that makes
two different
batches of medicine, and it was like nightmares.
Thank god. That never get out into the
real world because only only god knows what
would happen. So that's that's I like you
can't we can't exclude that type of cross
contamination just can't happen in Yeah. The twenty
first cent in the twenty first century. So
but this this is so interesting. Is this
c is this something that would be in
a I'm just looking at such a nice
looking desktop device.
Would this be something that was only used
in a lab or could it actually be
used in a production line? Yeah. So there's
there's two versions. Okay. There is a tabletop,
which is what you can kinda see on
the screen where we have this chassis built
around,
the the there's really three components in this.
There's a a transmitter
that's kind of sitting at the top there.
There is a base unit, which is where
the sensor goes into,
that has all the electronics,
and then you have your disposable sensor. So
the sensor is where all your fluid is
gonna be flowing through. Mhmm. The base unit
is doing all of the,
manipulation
on the tubes themselves. So we talked about
how a Coriolis meter works or oscillating those
tubes.
The base unit is actually doing that, and
then the transmitter is taking all of that
raw data, understanding it all jumbled up, and
giving it out a flow rate, a very
accurate flow rate.
And there's two different versions of this. There
is a test desktop version and a panel
mount version. So the panel mount version would
be, you know, in a skid of some
sort. Mhmm.
That would be permanent,
but then the the single use cartridge would
be pulled out,
disposed of, and then a a new one
would be replaced there. And and that's kind
of kind of what we're gonna get to
too in a little bit once we start
seeing some of the challenges in this industry.
So this industry really is is
it's not new, but it is in terms
of process instrumentation.
There's not a lot of manufacturers
out there who who have single use flow
technologies.
So there's a challenge from our perspective as
as the the manufacturer
to try and meet all of the requirements
of the industry,
while providing a robust,
accurate,
reliable sensor for these applications.
And so that's where our r and d
kind of,
hit a hit a snag at at one
point almost because
they're they're so used to making robust products
that last
ten, twenty, thirty years in process.
Now we have to look at a product
that we want to also do all of
those things, but also
be disposed of. And so there's there's some
challenges there.
Similarly, there's a challenge of of calibration
in a lot of pharmaceutical plants because
certain products require calibration before they're even installed.
Certain products require calibration before they're installed and
while on-site.
And then,
if there's ever a replacement that goes in,
there's an additional
calibration that might have to happen. And so
what we wanted to do was take all
of those constraints, all of those challenges, and
try and check the boxes of all of
them. And I think that's kinda where our
single use landed.
There are still some, you know, some certain
applications that are challenged, but they're always gonna
be a challenge,
until
there's some
innovation that comes out that that truly meets
that need. But,
I guess, in general, really, if if you
look at a high level, it's a half
a percent accurate device.
We have four different sizes of of sensors
that can go into the same base unit.
We have an eighth inch,
a quarter inch, a half inch, and a
one inch sensor that will go into this
base unit. They all fit into the same
base unit. So as we talked about it
with an example,
using product A, maybe you're only flowing at
10 liters per minute,
but then product b, you're flowing at 75
liters per minute. Well, technically, those should probably
be two different flow meters,
but we can just change the different cartridges
out, and and there's no risk of of
contamination, and there's no need to change anything
other than the sensor itself.
It is gamma sterilizable, especially in pharmaceutical. That's
really important to make sure that there's no
contamination
at all from anything in production, from any
anybody's hands getting on it or anything like
that.
We don't do it as a manufacturer.
We would kind of rely on our OEMs,
on our, tube set manufacturers
to actually
put these skids together, and part of that
package would be to gamma sterilize all of
the fittings, all of the tubing, as well
as as well as the
the flow sensors.
And then we also talked about the different
the different designs that we have.
It is stainless steel tubes, which is different,
and it's polycarbonate
flow splitter. So if you see that purple
part on the screen,
where our tubing would come into,
that is a plastic or a polycarbonate
product.
And then the tubes themselves where we're actually
performing the measurements is a stainless steel,
three sixteen l,
material, which is different because at
when you think about
single use, you think about plastic. You think
about,
bags
that are plastic, bioreactors that are plastic,
because they're easy to throw away and they
they're inexpensive.
But we felt like in order to meet
all of those challenges and all of those,
constraints in terms of,
current,
sensor designs,
we felt like the most robust way to
do that would be to use stainless steel.
And we have a long history of of
manufacturing
stainless steel devices,
and so this is just, another way that
we could,
show our our expertise in
in in products and in especially in Coriolis
meters.
So
there are, as I mentioned, three components. You
have your base unit or your single,
single use disposable sensor. Down at the bottom
there, you have your base unit, which is
again where all your electronics are, and then
you have your,
and then you have your transmitter. And there's
a cable going from the the transmitter to
the the base unit.
There's a couple of things I want to
highlight on the inside of what the meter
is and how it what it looks like.
The first thing and probably the most important
is that barcode scanner.
So every single one of these disposable flow
tubes gets calibrated
at our factory
and then gets imprinted
a QR code on the inside of the
flow meter.
And that QR code, that two d barcode
scanner actually scans that information.
So it can it can accurately pull in
the calibration information.
It can pull in the serial number of
the tubes. It can pull in the line
size of the tubes. It can pull in
a lot of information related to those tubes.
And then it can relay that back to
the transmitter, and the transmitter
can check to make sure everything seems functional.
And that kind of falls into where our
heartbeat technology,
conversation may come in in in just a
little bit.
And then again, all the electronics are our
sensor electronics boards,
our,
ISCM or our sensor electronics module,
all is based inside that base unit,
inside this very large not not very large,
but a a very heavy bodied
base unit
to ensure stability,
across the board.
And so here's an example of what that
QR code kinda looks like on the on
the backside of that that flow tube, and
then another,
look into kind of what the
the the inside of the base unit looks
like. You see
coil inlet one, coil inlet two, or coil
outlet two.
Similarly to kind of what we talked about
before,
we really care about what's hap what's going
on in between those tubes, in between those
those two coils. And so we're magnetically
oscillating
the,
the Coriolis flow tubes
inside at that back piece, that back,
what is that? It's like a gray
type
ceramic piece in the back, and that's ultimately
giving us
giving us that oscillation that we're looking for.
And then our inlet and outlet,
pickup coils are also magnetically coupled
to to the sensors, and,
we can detect very small changes in those
at that oscillations
those oscillations.
So very very cool, very innovative.
It's a product that we've had out for
a while in,
a while, less than less than a year,
but long enough. And there's been a lot
of interest in in the pharmaceutical space, especially
as people are trying to save costs,
go closer to maybe
a personalized medicine approach,
where there's gonna be smaller,
amounts of product going through, more expensive amount
of product going through.
Accuracy is gonna be the most important there.
And so this is where,
we kinda talk about
a little bit more about how to maintain
that data trail, that automated data trail from
the cal the calibration in the factory all
the way into production.
And so in this case, what we what
we're looking at is, here's the process of
what would happen in in in a in
a system. We would calibrate the tubes at
our factory.
The tubes would go to a tube set
manufacturer.
The tube set manufacturer puts all of these
pieces together.
They double bag them in a class seven
ISO,
ISO class seven environment.
Super clean area,
no risk of contamination there. And then just
to be even more safe, they're going to
gamma sterilize it there. Then
they're going to bring it on-site
where they have their skid created,
and they're gonna plug everything in. And then
once they plug everything in
and turn
the entire skid on, they're gonna, they're gonna
notice that on the flow meter, it says,
hey, we're doing a function check right now.
What does that mean? That's ultimately what we
call heartbeat technology,
and that's doing some advanced diagnostics
behind the scenes. And it's checking
information like electronics in the bit in the
base unit. It's checking,
tubes, making sure the tubes are
aligned and weren't damaged in shipping,
and ensuring that the the factory calibration is
still valid on the current device. So all
of that is happening kind of behind the
scenes before you,
even start running product through it, to ensure
that we are fully CGMP
or,
current good manufacturing practice
and operation,
on a production side.
And that kind of maybe leans leads a
little bit
into,
another product that we've recently released, which is
our Anderson Hauser ProMASS k 10.
It's the first Coriolis meter, in the world
that has IO Link as an output. And
now IO Link, I I think it's really
important to start with a really good basis
about what IO Link is,
and IO Link is something
I call it the three wire digital communication,
but it it's not a 100% accurate. So
we'll maybe dive into that a little bit
and talk about what IO Link can do,
and how it is,
is being accepted in industries,
specifically in farms, in in food and beverage
and pharmaceutical
industries.
As a general rule of thumb,
most
large smart factories are using
Ethernet based protocols.
So that means that their their
the devices that they have, the control system
that they have is all digital, which means
you can get a lot more data
and get a lot of data. You can
get so much data you have no idea
what to do with.
There's also,
these Ethernet switches that are typically either remote
Ethernet switches or switches that are out in
the plant that,
that are pulling in a lot of this
data and then
sending it up to whether it's their asset
management system
or a control system,
and ultimately can give us the most amount
of information
about the health of the device,
any sort of multivariable,
values that we have coming out of the
device.
And then similarly,
on the op on the right side here
of this screen, you see an IO Link
system.
IO Link
also
does a very similar thing
where you have a remote,
what's called an IO Link master. It's connected
to a flow meter
or connected to a level switch or connected
to,
a temperature probe, and it pulls all that
information in,
and then it outputs that information
back to their control system.
And so historically, we've had a lot of
Ethernet four wire devices,
whether that's Ethernet IP,
PROFINET,
Modbus,
any sort of digital heart as a as
an option as well.
That's historically been where our Ethernet four wire
and two wire devices come from.
Now IO Link hasn't really been a focus
for us, but because of our our
diversity in different industries, we've had to
look at IO Link as a feasible,
cost efficient choice for basic process needs
in under in in flow meters, in pressure
transmitters, in a lot of devices,
and a lot of a lot of different
applications.
And so there's some benefits and pros and
cons to both.
Ethernet, you have a lot of
process devices
versus simple simple measurement points.
The,
the IO Link, you have a specific range
in terms of distances.
That's only about 60 feet, which means it's
really, really good for those skid solutions,
that are put out in into many, many
factories and especially
especially in food and beverage.
The IO Link masters are really where the
integration happens.
And then the data that's recorded and aggregated
is happening inside that IO Link master where
typically
on a,
Ethernet based system, you all have full transparency
from,
device level all the way up to your
your control system, DCS system,
throughout and anywhere throughout that system as well.
There is uses for both even in the
same plants. There's uses for both in in
similar applications,
but I I think one of the benefits
is
being the first,
Coriolis manufacturer
to have a IO Link device. What does
that mean? Really, what it means is we
can get some very good data, not all
the data, but in many cases, we don't
need all of the data,
and we can be super accurate,
extremely fast in terms of data data transmission,
and,
make things a little easier in terms of
of integration and installation
of the devices.
So typically what a
a system or a subsystem might look like
with IO Link, you have your IO Link
master, that's where power is
is brought to,
and it's also where our connection to that
overarching
enterprise system or DCS system is. So that
IO Link master is a must. You have
to have that.
You also have to have a flow meter
that is or any device that is capable
of outputting
in an IO Link protocol,
in an IO Link communication method.
And then there's a specific three wire cable
that goes from the device
to the master.
And there this is the often overlooked thing,
but it's an IODD.
Essentially what that means is it's an
IO Link device driver.
So that device driver is gonna tell the
IO link master
what and how is this device sending information
to me.
So
it's almost like a little roadmap
for the IO Link master to understand what's
happening
on the on the base the base level
of,
of that IO Link device.
Ultimately, these are the four things to have
that you have to have for, basic subsystem
components.
And then,
as you start integrating it to into an
overarching system, there's a little bit more that
would be needed as well, but this will
at least get you started,
and understanding kind of why there's IO Link
masters,
and why there's IO Link protocols and technology
in the first place.
So
again, this is our Coriolis k 10,
with our IO Link master. It's a line
size three eighths of an inch all the
way up to three inch.
It also has what we call heartbeat technology.
It has,
three a. It has all of our,
approvals for hygienic
applications, for food and beverage applications, for pharmaceutical
applications as well,
and gives us a little bit more flexibility
in terms of
what we can offer our customers
that
will meet the need of where they're at,
but also prepare them for for future,
expansions and,
and
and large scale DCS
turnarounds and things like that. So,
there is
a couple of things here, mass flow as
a standard with density,
temperature,
and you get a standard totalizer one as
an output.
There is,
again, food contact materials,
eHedge three a, all hygienic process connections as
well as standard process connections,
available with this device. And then one other
key factor here is when we're in actually
interacting with this device, there's a couple of
ways we can interact with it. We can,
of course, use a a touch screen. We
can push the device
and and be right in front of it.
There's also a method for using a free
app that we have on on the Android
store and the Apple Apple Store.
That's called SmartBlue.
That's available for a lot of different devices,
but it is using a Bluetooth technology to,
tap into the device and configure,
everything.
And then the other option is using a,
a device manager,
with a CDI port that's built inside the
transmitter as well. So all different ways to
to interact with the same device,
even,
interacting with it using IO Link is possible
as well. So a lot of different functionalities,
a lot of different,
options, so we can meet the needs where
meet the customers where their needs are, and
then also where their they wanna get get
to.
So that kind of takes us into what
heartbeat technology is. And we actually we talk
about heartbeat technology as a story because I
think if we start talking about
what it is before we talk about the
story, it's,
it's
it's it's hard to to wrap your head
around. There's a lot going into it. And
part of that that discussion really starts with
a a marketing phrase, which is called taking
the pulse of your measurement. And what that
really does is
is it's trying to understand how the device
is operating currently,
and how the device may be operating in
the future
based on current conditions.
And so all all of that is is
started with what our customers
expect out of a flow meter, expect out
of a pressure transmitter, expect out of a
pH probe.
All of our customers' needs and our users'
needs are expanding.
So not only do they need excellent measurement
performance from a device,
they also need a reliable device.
I I need to know when something's going
wrong.
They also wanna be available. If the device
itself isn't always available,
they can't trust it. We want our customers
to not only trust our device, but trust
the measurement performance that they're getting out of
the device.
And they also want it easy to easy
to use. As we've seen in a lot
of industries,
the,
the operations teams, the operators that are on
on the plant floor
are getting less and less,
and maybe they're moving more towards engineering.
But there are a lot of plants that
are running extremely lean. And so running lean
means they have to run efficiently and they
have to run effectively.
And if our devices are not easy to
use and easy to understand,
we're we're kind of failing at at that
point. So we also wanna make sure our
devices are safe. We wanna make sure our
devices are predictive,
and we wanna make sure our devices potentially
can be connected
in the future.
And so all of those together is now
now we've got a difficult puzzle we've gotta
try and solve,
with any one of our measurement devices.
And that's where we think kinda heartbeat technology
meets a lot of those needs and bridges
the gap between,
the excellent measurement performance and and all of
these, needs that we have.
So we split heartbeat technology into kind of
three categories.
We have diagnostics, which is,
current,
current status, current device diagnostics,
advanced diagnostics. That's the basis of everything. So
if we don't have a good basis
of diagnostics,
we can't do verification.
We can't do monitoring. We can't provide in,
improved
process insights,
very effectively if we don't have a good
base unit. So that happens from that happens
from the the design of our devices
all the way down to the raw components
that go into all of the devices as
well.
And then verification is kind of a what's
happening to my device right now, and can
you give me a PDF printout of what
that looks like.
So that's that's part of the verification. And
then again, monitoring
how we look at certain values over time
trended over time, so we can start understanding,
predictively
when certain process conditions or process upsets may
happen or could happen, and how will they
affect our measurements.
So all of that together
is really bridged on the diagnostic coverage. It's
based around how we can detect our,
any
alarms, alerts, failures,
things that happen inside the device that weren't
expected.
All of that needs to be,
really, really important.
And so our IO modules, our sensor electronic
modules, our sensor,
inlet and outlet pickup coils,
and our divi our ex
the entire excitation
system that's happening inside of a of a
Coriolis meter,
all
are really, really important to understand the health
of the device. If we can understand
the health of individual components of the device,
we can try and better understand the health
of the entire device as a whole.
Kind of the sum of, sum of equal
parts
or the sum of parts is is greater
than the than the sum of the the
system. So,
that's ultimately what we're trying to do here.
And
what that means is that this value,
the heartbeat sensor integrity parameter
is always generated and can be used as
a
direct
value
for,
understanding
process related concerns
as well as meter concerns.
So in a similar way, we talked about,
oscillation modes with our PROMAS Q, with our
PROMAS I,
and other flow meters as well. The
frequency or the oscillation frequency that we're actually
doing for this HBSI value is
a fixed diff distance from that frequency.
And so at any one time, we're we're
oscillating these tubes at
one, two, almost,
three every, three different frequencies every time. And
so the part of this this parameter is
ultimately giving us a little bit more
information
related to the health of the sensors,
related to,
even the health of the process as well.
And we'll talk about a couple of use
cases on on how that,
and what that means, and and can ultimately
mean for you.
So as a general rule of thumb, when
we calibrate
and design a new sensor,
our HBSI value,
is 0%
at reference conditions, and that may fluctuate depending
on if you're operating at reference conditions or
not.
But right around zero, it could be negative
point one to positive point one,
percent, but there's no no cause kind of
for concern there. We do have kind of
a stated bandwidth in which we expect the
flow meter to operate
well within its its factory calibration and well
within its specification.
But if that value
shows
very, very low,
or values, like, right around zero as a
reference condition, your HBSI value is related directly
to sensor components that aren't affected. So if
our
exciter current,
if our pickup coils, if our,
sensor tubes are not damaged,
likely that HBSI value is going to remain
at zero or right around zero. Now when
we do have something like a wear mechanism,
something like corrosion or erosion or abrasion
inside the tubes,
ultimately, there's things that are going to be
affected by that. Now how do we actually
detect that? Well, that's where
using this HBSI value, we can actually understand
individual components of the the flow meter, individual,
components like the sensor tubes.
For example,
if we were to have a corrosion instance,
your wall thickness of the tubes would change.
And so what what would happen there is
as we start oscillating these
tubes, you would start to see that value
increase because your tubes
are moving moving more and more and more
because we're oscillating at the same frequency or
at the at the same frequency,
but
the tubes is not our tubes are not
as heavy. Right? So,
that's where that
that HBSI value can give us information related
to,
kind of the health of all of our
devices or all of our our components within
the device.
So there's multiple ways to observe that HBSI
value, and this is where trending comes into
play,
looking at something and trying to be predictive
and preventative,
in the long term.
There's no process interruption.
This this entire thing happens. This entire,
HBSI value is generated,
automatically by the device itself.
It remained the measurement remains completely available, continuously
available, and it happens in situ behind the
scenes, if you will,
of a of your measurement.
And then you're gonna improve
efficiency, obviously, and and reduce risk if you
understand
what's happening and what's going on inside the
flow meter without you actually visually seeing what's
happening to the device.
So,
all of that to say,
there's a lot of ways to observe it,
but there is also important ways,
that we can use it. So,
yes, knowing that the HVSI value is zero
is just that's great. That's awesome. But what
does that ultimately mean? And here's a couple
of examples. Here's a couple of use cases.
So we've had an application,
in the past where,
it was an abrasive fine slurry.
And so anytime you have abrasive fine slurries,
you have to be extra cautious of using
bent tubes,
and
also the velocities in which you're flowing those
those those processes through there.
So the initial one, they had was a
dual bent tube that failed six months in
the service,
and they replaced it with a single straight
tube.
So they expected
to see some abrasion, but
because of the design of the flow meter,
that HBSI parameter was taken over time,
and it's been installed for for four years
now and shows a relatively flat line behavior
for the the HBSI value, meaning there's no
wear mechanism going on inside that device,
be because of the process.
So that's a that's a use case there.
Another use case that that we talk about
a lot is is the presence of abrasion
in general. We know that in some applications,
there is going to be abrasion.
And that's on us as the manufacturer, that's
also on, the customer to understand what their
levels and limits are, and are capable of
handling.
And
if they don't know, that's that's where we
we should probably step back and say, hey,
let's let's talk about this as a as
a at a high level. What happens when
something goes wrong? Do you just automatically remove
the device? Is it are you down in
terms of,
not being able to produce properly?
Things like that.
And that's where in this case we used,
kind of predictive maintenance
every
ten, twelve, fifteen, eighteen months. We know we
have to replace this device because of the
abrasion,
or we have to decrease our velocity,
through the meter.
So either way, that's ultimately this use case
and showing showing that there is a wear
mechanism happening,
and we need to understand at what point
do we need to start replacing these devices.
And lastly,
here's one that was an unexpected wear mechanism.
So
customer used a Coriolis flow meter,
and for
five days, everything was great. No worries. Everything
was totally fine. Customer didn't expect anything to
be wrong, which is exactly what was shown.
And then once they did a cleaning cycle
with a new product a new cleaning product,
they noticed that this value increased.
And so over time, I mean, think about
twenty five days, you're increasing
your HBSI value because you're performing your regular
scheduled cleaning. Well, that wasn't understood,
and that wasn't,
that didn't the the customer didn't know that
was going to affect things. We didn't know
that was going to affect things, but this
ultimately shined light on, here's what's happening.
Now can we change cleaners,
or
can we use a material that's more compatible
with that cleaner,
or can we just live with the the,
the risk that
the
the values will last long enough for us
to get really, really good good data, and
then we can,
and look at replacing it, things like that.
So this was another,
application where we weren't expecting to see any
sort of drift, but we did because
of, the the wear mechanism that that wasn't,
very well known or or present at at
the time.
So, ultimately, I think, you know, using,
something like heartbeat technology as a,
a confidence boots booster in your measurement is
is really the the key there. Because I
think
the more that we can increase confidence in
our measurements, the more that our customers,
will
continue to want to to work with us
and collaborate with us on on applications
and and talk,
about,
different,
industry applications and things like that. As as
the working for a manufacturer is currently my
my first my first job, I think I
think, out of college, I think there's a
there's a really cool benefit of of a
privately owned company that
continues to invest in research and development
for the products that we have. And,
I think that, you know, Anderson Hauser has
has done a great job of,
showing some innovations that we can within our
Coriolis flow flow meter technologies.
That's all I got.
Well, I thought that was very interesting, especially
the HBSI, how you guys have in included
that in your product so you can see
that everything's good, or if something is starting
to go out
of out of, you know, out of I
don't wanna say out of whack. You know,
something's starting to go out of alignment, you
know, with Yeah. What you were expecting. And
that example of cleaning, you know, nobody would
have thought, you know, this, you know,
this product is designed to run this fluid
through it, but the cleaner, they'll finding out
that the cleaner was the problem.
That's priceless. Right? That's priceless. And you can
you like you said, there's different options you
can take
to address that issue, but now that you
know what the problem is. If you didn't
know there was a problem, then your values
would be off over time, and that wouldn't
be good at all. Right. So Right. Just
such an interesting topic to talk through. And
I I appreciate you not only to take
us through your products, but also taking us
through some of the technologies
that are built in the products and that
make them work. And I you know, there's
a lot there between
the, field bus, the PROFINET, and the Ethernet
IP
on your really high end,
high accuracy,
you know, type of installations versus
maybe a smaller installation where you can use
IO Link because it's slower cost. We just
had the IO Link folks on the podcast.
If you guys missed that, just, check back,
a podcast or two ago. We had the
IO link guys on talking about what they
do and how they do it, and I
think you summarized it very well in this
presentation.
And so I think that makes a lot
of people happy because in many cases,
that's a lower cost. Yeah. I mean, you're
not gonna get the same performance as you're
gonna get over Ethernet, but
you're it's a lower cost, and it's, you
know, maybe enough information for your application. So
it's good to see that option there, especially
for those skid manufacturers who can utilize those
products.
You know, with that, I I don't have
any other questions. Was there anything else you
wanted to say before we close out the
show? No. All I have to say is
thank you. I appreciate the the time and
the the the platform. I think this is,
awesome, and thank you for asking all the
questions you did. I think there was a
lot of a lot of really good information
that you mentioned,
as well there too. So,
thank you. That's all I have to say.
Well, Lon, thank you for coming on. I,
I just like the first time we had
Anderson Hauser on,
it was just really just so intellectually interesting.
So it's our pleasure to have you on,
and we really appreciate you guys. Thank you.
Appreciate it. Well, I hope you enjoyed that
episode, and I wanna thank Lawton for for
coming on the show, not only to bring
us up to speed on Coriolis flow meters,
but also answering my questions because I know
I interrupted there, especially at the beginning with
a lot of questions. So really appreciate him,
taking my questions and also bringing us up
to speed on the technology.
Now Now I also wanna thank E and
H for sponsoring this episode so I could
bring it to you ad free on all
platforms.
I don't like ads, but, you know, you
gotta pay the bills. And when a vendor
comes in and they sponsor the show, it
really underwrites our cost to edit it and
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and to all our sponsors who do that.
And please let them know if you see
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talking to one of their reps or you're
talking to, somebody from E and H, please
let them know how much I appreciate and
maybe you appreciate that they sponsored this episode.
I also wanna mention that you may not
know this, but I brought my other podcast
back, the automation news podcast. I renamed the
automation tech talk. And anytime I have an
episode that is,
one of my shorter episodes that I think
will do good on audio, be a good
listen. Right? I am publishing it on that
automation tech talk podcast.
And on this podcast, you probably notice every
once in a while, I'm releasing an episode
of the automation show. Some episodes of the
automation show, there's so much hands on that
I don't think they'd make a good audio
addition,
but some of them are like presentations
and discussions.
And I think those would make a good
episode of the automation podcast. So I'm releasing
them on this podcast channel, but I'm keeping
the name, the automation show. So you know,
hey. This is, originally was a video that
was turned into a podcast.
So give me feedback. If you don't like
those, I'll stop doing it. But I thought
because, some weeks we can't always bring you
a new episode, we may have an episode
of automation show that I think would make
a good listen. So I wanted to bring
those to you on this platform as well.
And, again, I always love your feedback, and
I wanna thank everybody
who's given a five stars or thumbs up.
You guys are great. I you know, last
time I checked on it, you had so
many people,
had given us five stars. And that you
know, that's really how we find new vendors
come out, like E and H and other
vendors. Right? They specifically said you guys were
such had such great feedback on the previous
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So please take a moment. I know a
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when you get home or get to some
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please give us a thumbs up or a
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come on the show. And with that, I'm
gonna end the show right there. I wanna
wish you all good health and happiness. And
until next time, my friends,
peace.