ChipSmart automates a chip quality survailance

Teknosavo’s chip meters offer automated solutions for monitoring the chip flow in a production line (2D) and for taking laboratory samples (3D).

ChipSmartTM 2D identifies three different product categories on a chip line based on their brightness, bark and moisture content. With automated chip quality monitoring, the system adjusts the amount and speed of chips delivered to the digester. 

ChipSmartTM 3D automates sampling for production quality monitoring. It directs chips to a separate line, performs automatic testing without manual collection and laboratory work, and also records the results in the factory’s operative system. In the measurement, it utilizes the Scan CM 40:01 standard and offers an excellent solution for automating production sampling. Recommended testing interval is four times per hour.

Measures based on SCAN-CM 40:01 standard:

  • Oversize chips
  • Over-thick chips
  • Larce accepts
  • Small accepts
  • Pin chips
  • Sawdust
  • Chip dimensions: Length, thickness, width

Optional dimensions of Teknosavo’s solutions: Extent of bark, chip surface brightness and chip moisture

Chipsmart™ 2D

ChipSmart 2D was developed to measure chip quality in real time. The system consists of a camera and lighting unit installed above the chip conveyor and a PC unit including analysis software. The camera acquires image data from the chip flow and sends the data to the PC unit for a color analysis. The result shows chip quality data such as chip surface brightness, the extent of bark and other impurities in the chip flow, changes of chip surface moisture, chip thickness, changes of chip size classification and material volume flow on the chip conveyor.

The measurement data can be used for debarking control monitoring the condition of the chipper blades or purchased woodchip to avoid unnecessary disruptions later in the chip handling process. The data can be connected to the WoodSmart  process optimization system, in the wood room automatic main control system, or shown in the control room on a separate display.

Chipsmart™ 3D

ChipSmart 3D measures chip quality and dimensions in real time. The measuring device can be installed in many locations, for example near the chip pocket located after the chipper in the paper/pulp mill’s wood room, in the chip screening system, at the purchased chips reception facility, near the chip bin’s discharge conveyor at the chip refining plant, or near the pulp digester’s loading conveyor. The device can also be used to analyze manual samples or the quality of by-product chips sold at the sawmill.

The automatic sampler enables the extraction of representative samples from the main chip flow. The type of the sampler and treatment of the sample chips after measurement can be configured individually for each industrial end user. The ChipSmart 3D system consists of a chip classification unit placed above the measurement device’s own separate chip conveyor, a camera and optics unit, a touchscreen, and PC unit housing the analysis and maintenance software.

Solutions for automated chip quality surveillance

Below you will find a comparison table of the suitability of our chip meters for different uses: