Automatic cleaning of soiled filter material - has main process stopped when detectors sense soiling of filter, esp. by milk

摘要

During the processing of agricultural food products the flow of a fluid such as milk causes a material to be soiled until it eventually clogs. Detectors sense this condition and stop the process to start a cleaning operation. A number of detectors are located on a material to continuously monitor the flow through it. Data from the detectors is applied to a processing unit where the values are stored in a memory for comparison with a theoretical value determined for a clean material. When the compared value indicates that the material is soiled the fluid flow is stopped and a cycle of cleaning operation is commenced. When the detectors indicate that the flow rate is above a threshold level this cleaning operation is stopped and the process fluid flow is restarted.