MEC - Aeration Controller

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Adaptive Discounting Controller

A new dawn for grain aeration

After more than 7 years of development by James Darby and his team at the CSIRO, and almost two and a half year of commercialisation by Industrial Automation of Perth, the new Adaptive Discounting Controller is here. Quite a mouthful for a new type of grain aeration controller but one that end users will quickly warm to.

Modern Engineering, a company with over 40 years experience in Grain Storage, have been appointed the National distributor for the controller. Sales inquiries in the Eastern States can be made to the Walla Walla Head Office and in Western Australia to the Perth Office.

For those not too familiar with grain aeration, there are 3 different types of aeration: cooling, drying and maintenance. To date this has never been combined in the one controller but the ADC controller has changed all that. The Aeration Manager, as Industrial Automation prefers to call their controller, not only combines all three functions but automatically selects the correct type of aeration out of the three.

Air selection

With existing aeration controllers, the activation of the fans is based on a combination of time functions and ambient air conditions. This rarely takes in the condition of the grain as a point of control. With the Aeration Manager the status (temp and moisture) of the stored grain is derived from data entered during inload and from weather station data during fan run hours. This predictive technology is the heart of the ADC system and allows the controller to take the grain condition into consideration when activating the fan(s). This will therefore only turn on the fan(s) when the grain requires airflow.

ADC controller screen

Adaptive Discounting

This technology allows for the buffer area within a silo (approx 1 hour worth of aeration) to act as a filter for air that would normally fall outside the standard limits (too moist or too warm). For example when the controller has determined that the buffer area will be capable of absorbing some moist air, cool moist air will allow the rapid cooling of the grain mass. This way the air that would normally have been discarded as too moist will be put to good use. The same applies to warm dry air when the buffer area can absorb some heat.

Running cost

The result of this selective fan control (adaptive discounting and grain condition) means a substantial reduction in fan runs hours and hence operating costs. Optional monitoring of the fan current by the controller will also ensure that an alarm will be created when the fan fails thereby increasing the reliability of the system.

Operation

With new technology the risk is always there that operation of the equipment will be complicated. Fortunately in this instance this is not the case with an easy to use touchscreen that guides you through the functions of the controller. An optional CDMA link will even allow you to control this from your desktop.

Further Information

In the eastern states email us at: mec@kotzur.com
or Phone:(02) 6029 4700 or Fax:(02) 6029 2307

In Western Australia email our Perth office at: wa-sales@kotzur.com
or Phone:(04) 2721 4825 or Fax:(08) 9274 8174