To give the students a comprehensive understanding of fundamentals of fluid power systems and practical orientation to enable them to design, implement, and test pneumatic, electro-pneumatic and hydraulic circuits. In addition the student will gain knowledge and skills enabling them to produce advanced PLC programs and to interface PLCs with a range of industrial processes.
Health and Safety
Hydraulic/pneumatic safety precautions, health and safety legislation, accident prevention, safety procedures. Safety in control systems: machine safety (EN ISO 13849-1:2015).
Pneumatic Systems
Physical properties and characteristics of air. Air generation and distribution systems. Pneumatic and electro-pneumatic symbols and circuit drawings. Pneumatic system structure and signal flow. Pneumatic valves, pneumatic actuators, sensors. Design and implementation of pneumatic and electro-pneumatic circuits. Interface of PLCs and electro-pneumatic circuits. Fault-finding, analysis and report production. Economics of compressed air production and distribution.
Hydraulic Systems
Physical properties and characteristics of hydraulic fluids. Hydraulic symbols and circuit drawings. Hydraulic system structure and signal flow. Pneumatic system components including: hydraulic pumps, valves, control valves, actuators, sensing devices. Design and implementation of hydraulic circuits. Interface of PLCs and hydraulic circuits. Fault-finding, analysis and report production.
Advanced PLC Systems and Programming
Review of basic programming functions, PLC architecture and field devices. PLC programming software packages. Protection and safety devices, input and output modules including: digital I/O, analogue I/O, high speed counter modules. Advanced PLC programming functions including: data movement and comparison functions, arithmetic functions, subroutines. IEC 1131-3 programming languages standard.
PLC Interfacing
Monitoring and operation of PLCs using human machine interfaces (HMIs). Configuration, programming, and installation of HMIs for given applications. Introduction to communications protocols and networks. Interfacing of PLCs with industrial technologies including: variable speed drives, pulse counting devices, stepper motors, shaft encoders, analogue and digital sensors.
PLC Projects
PLC project planning: I/O requirements, power supply sizing, programming requirements, wiring drawings, initial program development. PLC project implementation: hardware installation and wiring, program implementation. PLC project testing and commissioning: I/O device loop checking and/or simulation, software testing/simulation and debugging, systematic fault finding of system faults. Project documentation: process/plant description, description of control objectives, I/O schedules and wiring diagrams, fully commented program, software back-ups.
| Module Content & Assessment | |
|---|---|
| Assessment Breakdown | % |
| Other Assessment(s) | 100 |