Drawing up the project

Apart from Tecnalia, taking part in this project are the CSL technological centre at the University of Liège (Belgium), the recycling companies Indumental Recycling (the Basque Country) and Ige Hennemann (Germany), the recycling machine manufacturer Hevac Ambient (Barcelona), the SPECIM multispectral system designers (Finland) and the Aclima Environment Cluster (the Basque Country).

The current processes of the recycling companies have a number of samples with mixtures of different components (aluminium, copper, brass, steel, plastics, and so on) for which it is desirable to be able to separate their distinct components. Initial analyses of these samples were carried out by the designers of the CSL illumination system, by means of point to point analyses, and by SPECIM using analysis with multispectral cameras.

For the design of the prototype machine, including the vision system, the targets of the recycling companies have been taken into account, with the aim of that the machine will be in the end also competitive at the level of performance, functionality and price.

The recycling companies, members of the consortium (Indumental Recycling and Ige Hennemann) have thus defined their main requirements for the first stage of the project:

The initial quantity they wish to identify by unit of time (the entry of the mix with all the components)

The components of each fraction and their proportion in the mix

The size, color, shape and other physical characteristics of each component

The components that have to be extracted

The minimum size to be identified

The minimum and maximum size of components to be separated

The height of each component

Notable problems of certain materials

The average particle weight of each component, or the shape thereof, in order to estimate how many particles could pass through if a flow of 1 Tn/h is desired.

The designed system should also be insulated from water and dust because it is to be used in the recycling industry, where all the machinery has to be strongly protected from great amounts of dust as well as withstand temperatures ranging from - 5ºC to 35ºC.

Likewise, the machine must be able to work 24 hours a day, five days a week, have little maintenance and provide the possibility of using it at low speed in order to obtain material as surplus in a preliminary cycle.

The initial trials in the project were the most important to identify the particles required to identify each mix, in accordance with the interests of the recycling companies. The samples analysed followed different strategic lines: SPECIM with a hyper-spectral line-by-line camera and CSL, with point-to-point spectrometric analysis. ROBOTIKER, given the great similarity between and choice of different classes, has employed processing techniques that enable the extraction of discriminating characteristics, simultaneously taking into account the spectral and spatial characteristics. In this way, discrimination of materials is achieved with a performance superior to the discrimination obtained by both methods operated separately.

The system of illumination proposed by CSL is a new design the aim of which is to achieve uniform illumination without brilliances, and with sufficient power to illuminate in the appropriate spectrum, taking into account the initial trials carried out with the mixes supplied by recycling companies.

1. Answer the following questions.

- Why is the application of this type of technology to the classification of metals is the novel approach which holds out hope for the solution to the problem?

- What is the aim of the project, known as SORMEN?

- Why is it highly important to have machines that can automatically identify each one of the elements, above all in a non- destructive manner?

- Why is the application of this type of technology to the classification of metals considered to be the novel approach which holds out hope for the solution to the problem?

- What are the main requirements for the project?

Дата добавления: 2015-11-16