Browsing by Author "Järvenpää, Aleksi"

The aim of this work was to design, build and test an elevator mass flow measuring equipment that can calculate the mass flow at a given time and the mass of the grain that has been moved through the elevator on the basis of the current consumption of the electric motor of the elevator. The measuring equipment was designed and built based on the Arduino Uno microcontroller board. The choice of Arduino as a microcontroller was based on affordable price, easy programmability and the availability of easy-to-connect accessories. The measurement equipment was built in a dust-proof case and consisted of an Arduino Uno, display, memory card reader, external power supply and a current clamp. The measuring equipment was designed to be easily installed and transported. Easy installation was achieved by using a current clamp for current measurement. The measuring equipment was tested with a grain elevator at Viikki Research Farm, where weighed grain samples were transferred from one silo to another. A function was created for the measuring equipment on the basis of the average grain flow rates and current consumption, which shows the mass flow in real time based on the current consumption of the elevator electric motor. In the final transfer experiment, the relative accuracy of the mass flow function ranged from 0 % to 8.4 %. The measuring equipment achieved its highest accuracy, below 1 %, at high grain mass flow levels (13,99 kg/s), where the mass flow was close to the maximum of the elevator. At low transfer rates (6,00 - 7,04 kg/s), the accuracy was poorest at 8,4 %. In the future, better results would probably be achieved by forming a mass flow function with the effective power measurement of the electric motor and by improving the calibration process of the measuring equipment. The developed measuring equipment is possibly suitable as a simple grain weighing solution and also for optimizing the recirculating speed of grain drying process.