Safety Systems

Ground Level Test Facility for High Level Alarms

Hycontrol have received industry safety awards for designing and manufacturing level monitoring systems to prevent overspill from tanks or silos. The systems will significantly improve health and safety on site, reduce product wastage and avoid expensive damage to storage vessels.

Typical systems include a level gauge, displaying contents and ullage with an early high level warning, and then additional and totally separate to this system an independent ultimate high level probe. When coupled with clear level information in the form of ultra bright multi LED traffic lights the displays provide the ultimate solution for preventing overspills.

These systems are individually tailored to meet the requirements of the application and provide the 'best engineered solution'. They are used by oil companies such as Total, Shell, Nynas and BP, whilst being designed in collaboration with associations such as the Refined Bitumen
Association (RBA).

The systems are available in a wide array of configurations with Hycontrol being one of the only level measurement companies to design, build, supply, install and service the complete system.

An overspill of any product whether liquid or solid, can be a potential hazard but if it is a particular aggressive product such as hot bitumen or acid the consequences could be fatal! For these types of applications an independent high-level safety alarm is essential at the top of the tank.

Health & Safety objectives are evolving every year and continuously trying to improve site safety with the introduction of many new guidelines such as regular instrument tests and a reduction in the requirement to have to climb to the tops of tanks and silos. Therefore instrumentation which is normally mounted at the top of the tank, such as high-level alarms, has had to be improved in order to conform with these safety objectives. Testing of high-level alarms from the bottom of the tank to ground level is an essential requirement for switches on these critical level applications.

Hycontrol have tackled this problem with both feet firmly on the ground. Their wide range of high level switches have the facility to be connected to a test switch or panel mounted at the bottom of the tank or silo and thus allow the high-level alarms to be tested without the need to climb to the top of silos to carry out a physical test of high-level switch.

Silo Protection

Many industries such as food, pharmaceutical and quarry, handle and transport millions of tonnes of product every year. This product comes in many different shapes, sizes and densities, but a great deal is shipped in powder and particulate form. These products are shipped from site to site, mainly by road tanker, and are then discharged from the tanker to the site's silos by fluidising the powder and blowing it into the silo.

This pneumatic conveying operation uses air to carry the product into the silo and this air must then be vented via a suitable filter. Silo protection is necessary to prevent:

1. Over-pressurisation.
   If the air is not vented then the silo can become pressurised and most silos are not tested as pressure vessels. Indeed, only a small increase (such as 1 psi) may be sufficient to either rupture the silo or blow the filter element off the silo roof.
2. Over-filling.
   Another common problem is over-filling the silo when either the level probe has failed or it is the wrong unit for the application. Both of these conditions necessitate the need for a silo protection system.

Hycontrol bitumen safety systems

As the number one supplier in the UK for complete bitumen monitoring systems, Hycontrol have supplied every major quarry company and bitumen tank manufacturer in the UK.

Hycontrol systems are designed in accordance with the Refined Bitumen Association's (RBA) current code of practice.

These systems are designed for maximum safety which Hycontrol promotes extensively into the quarry industry. Working to this standard is essential if bitumen overspills and incidents are to be reduced if not eliminated.

All Hycontrol sales and service personnel are bitumen safety trained and all carry quarry safety passports.