Erik Plestenjak (2012) Control of a wood biquetting machine. EngD thesis.
This thesis describes the renewal and modernization of an old wood briquetting machine. Wood briquetting machine is a machine that is used in the timber industry to compress fine wood waste material. The machine outputs woden briquettes, which are biomass, suitable for heating in the kiln. Machinery itself consists of a hardware and software part. The hardware part consists of hydraulic and electrical components. The key hydraulic components are the pump,the electric cylinders and the valves. The key electrical elements are the inductive sensors, the pressure sensor, the electrovalves and the programmable logic controller (PLC). Hydraulic part of the machine itself did not require major renovation, so the thesis describes it only briefly. The software of the machine is located on the programmable logic controller. Thesis focuses on it. It is implemented in the lader logic diagrams PLC programing language. The programing concept of finite state machines is used. The modernization, mainly in the software, increased the effectiveness of the machine for approximately 70 percent.