The advancement of heavy industries is one of the foremost priorities of any country and is also the dominant indicator of the country's economic growth. With the development of economies being driven by industrialization, the countries with state-of-the-art heavy industries have a lot of growth opportunities.
It doesn't matter to what extent you have tried to optimize your plant design; there is always an opportunity to lower the overall costs. Danfoss AC drives serve this purpose by providing multiple advantages like extending the equipment lifecycle, optimizing the system processes, reducing the maintenance expenditure, and carrying out additional savings on energy costs. Due to the type of products used and the complex production processes, the harsh environment of the heavy industries presents severe environmental impacts. These industries account for almost 22% of the global greenhouse gas emissions and put forth several other environmental hazards like oil spills, chemical leakage, and extensive water usage.
6 Reasons why you should choose Danfoss drives for heavy industrial harsh environments
The growth trajectory of the heavy industries has its own challenges. We have highlighted six reasons why choosing the Danfoss drives for the heavy industries is advantageous for your organization.
1) Compact enclosures for reduced infrastructure costs
The highly compact size of Danfoss VLT and VACON drives, designed for the long motor cables, do not require any additional options, which can be installed for smaller switch rooms. These compact enclosures provide an opportunity to move ahead with significant savings on the switch room establishment cost. Using the Danfoss AC drives and HVAC drives, several companies and contractors engaged in heavy industrial processing have saved significantly on the project and operating costs using these advanced features.
2) Smart heat management systems for significantly lower switch room costs
As the application of AC drives has increased in the highly efficient control equipment used in heavy industries, the heat loads arising from the HVAC systems require larger and more expensive air conditioning systems for the switchrooms. However, the technologically advanced back-channel cooling design of Danfoss VLT drives and Danfoss VACON liquid-cooled drives, once installed, significantly lowers the heat load requirement of the switchrooms, ultimately encouraging the usage of compact and economical air conditioning systems.
Danfoss VLT drives feature a high rating of 90+ kW and incorporates a unique back-channel cooling design that includes separate cooling channels intended for the power components and other control electronics partitioned using an IP54 enclosure. The innovative back-channel cooling system helps in removing almost 85% of the power loss using the heatsink and leaves just 15% of the total heat losses to be dissipated in the switchroom. The unique design of Danfoss VLT drives owes to the separation created using an IP54 enclosure that makes it seamless to duct the outside air in and out through the back-channel air path.
3) Reliable temperature control system
Danfoss VLT and VACON drives are designed to provide robust performance in the high ambient temperature conditions without any issues related to de-rating when used in harsh environments of heavy industries. These drives employ the most innovative systems for internal cooling that ensure the internal components carry out efficient and effective cooling and minimize the airflow through the sensitive and small electronic components installed on the interior of the printed circuit boards. When combined with the standard design, this temperature controller feature allows these drives to operate accurately even when installed along with long cables of the drives and motors, ultimately making them the best choice for use in heavy industrial temperature control applications.
4) Standard extended motor cable capacity
Danfoss AC drives like VLT and VACON drives administer seamless operations. They don't require any additional components as they have a considerable cable length of 500 ft for the screened cables and a cable length of 1000 ft for unscreened cables. Furthermore, other output filters are not required for the drive to function reliably with these enhanced cable lengths. This leads to space, installation time, and cost savings compared to the traditional AC drive solutions.
Danfoss HVAC drives feature built-in radio frequency interference (RFI) filters and complies with the EMC standards. This ensures the reliable and best-in-class performance of drives and all other electrical equipment in a single installation. The standard long motor cable capacity of Danfoss drives proves to be a highly compact solution in contrast to the conventional AC drives that require attachments to operate accurately with long motor cables. This ensures sizable savings on the initial project cost; as a result, the heavy industrial establishments can use smaller switchrooms.
5) Heat load reductions in the switch rooms
If the outside air quality in the heavy industrial setups is suitable, employing the heatsink cooling fans, relevant mounting & ducting, and filtered external air at a high temperature of around 122 °F can be used to drive out almost 85% of the heat loss using the Danfoss VLT drives. The advanced AC drives of Danfoss reduce the heat loss by directly exhausting the heat outside the switch room; this process does not affect the pressurization inside the switch rooms. Hence the air conditioning system of the switchrooms only needs to work on the remaining 15% heat losses leading to significant savings on the overall costs.
6) Designed for heavy industrial harsh environments
Sturdy design, incorporation of RFI & harmonic filters, and the capability to be installed with long motor cables are some of the unique characteristics of all Danfoss VLT and VACON drives. The rough, dusty, and extreme temperatures in heavy industries are common phenomena that can hamper any electronic product's serviceability. The Danfoss drives are designed for all these harsh environments. They feature a significantly longer and trouble-free product life cycle that guarantees enhanced asset availability and saves the organization's maintenance costs.
For the heavy industrial harsh environments, Danfoss drives have electronics coating protection that safeguards the drives in the harsh environment of the heavy industries. The back-channel cooling feature in the VLT high-power drives helps reduce adulteration of the control electronics area, ensuring longer life and higher product reliability.
Conclusion
Danfoss is well known as the first company to produce AC drives on a mass scale, a journey that started in 1968. Since then, Danfoss has been a leader in the drive technology, and our digital solutions support your company to lead in the dynamically changing world. Danfoss has the most dedicated drive solutions and state-of-the-art expertise for the heavy industries. Danfoss drives are undoubtedly your valuable partner and help you create best-in-class solutions for heavy industrial applications. Danfoss technological solutions optimize the AC drive applications, significantly reducing initial and ongoing project costs. The best-rated, robust, and reliable Danfoss AC drives for industry-leading CAPEX and OPEX savings in the heavy industry are all that you need for your industrial applications.