Insitec Detecting Screen Milling Failures

A Japanese manufacturer of agrochemicals originally bought the Insitec system for on-line QC purposes. The company was using a Hosokawa Victory mill which employs simple screens to prevent the escape of feed into the product stream. These milling screens are consumables that are normally replaced each day in preventive maintenance.

It was found, however, that the Insitec could detect a very frequent feed rate incident (feed would block occasionally). More importantly it was able to detect when the screen would break during milling. The company is now working on ways of predicting screen failure using real-time particle size parameters with the aim of replacing the screens only when absolutely necessary.