The Portatank®: Ultrasonic Tank Liquid Level Indicator
Portatank® is a handheld, portable, and battery powered liquid level indicator designed to non-invasively, accurately, and reliably measure the level of liquid within a tank. Thus allowing you to monitor and measure the level of liquids in your containers without opening them.
By eliminating the need to open a container when measuring the liquid level, there is no downtime, and significantly reduce the risk to personnel and contents when dealing with hazardous or sensitive liquids. The Portatank® can be used on containers from 0.5 meters in diameter to 15 meters made from most standard tank materials (steel, plastic, aluminium, etc.) and containing most standard industrial liquids accurate to within ±10mm.
The diversity of application for the Portatank® makes is perfect for use across your facility and can be used in a variety of industries.
CASE STUDIES from Food Processing to Pharmaceuticals for our Portatank®:
Case Study One: Food Processing Factories – Mayonnaise Vat and Apple Puree Vat Levels
A food processing factory based in the south of the UK used our Portatank® to accurately measure the contents of their mayonnaise vat. This company produce coleslaw, packaged salads, and pasta for companies such as McDonalds, Tesco, Morrisons, and Lidl. Producing over 130,000 pots of coleslaw a day it was imperative for them to monitor the vat levels.
The vat was 2.2. meter high with stainless steel walls approximately 5mm thick. Their previous monitoring method was to visually inspect the contents of the vat by sending employees up a ladder to check usage and remaining contents. This posed several issues:
- Potential Contamination
- Health and Safety Risk
- Inefficient
The implementation of our non-invasive liquid level indicator allowed the plant to run more efficiently and reduced risks by providing the staff with a means of accurately and non-invasively monitoring the contents without opening the container.
Similarly, a food processing factory in Slovakia processing fresh fruit, vegetables, and meat needed support in checking the liquid levels of apple puree, to be used in baby and toddler food and juice products.
This puree was stored in large steel tanks 4.5 metres heigh and client had no way to implement in-tank inspection as they did not have watermarks or a liquid level strip on them. Our handheld industrial tank liquid level indicator, Portatank®, solved this issue and allowed the factory to run more efficiently.
Case Study Two: Pharmaceutical Manufacturing – Ammonia Levels in IBCs
Glaxosmithkline, one of the largest pharmaceutical manufacturing companies in the world, used our Portatank® to monitor ammonia and water in IBCs at one of their manufacturing plants in Ireland. This plant produces active ingredients that are used in drugs that treat cancer, Parkinson’s, and depression.
The fumes given off by the ammonia created a health risk for their engineers who were previously utilising a physical dipstick to monitor the contents of IBCs. Moreover, opening the top valve during this process risked contaminating the ammonia which would cost the plant time and money.
Using the ultrasonic liquid level monitoring instrumentation to test liquid levels in several of the IBCs, they found that some tanks were partially full, and others were empty. This instrumentation not only allowed them to reduce the risk to their staff and the liquids being measured but it allowed them to reduce the amount of partially empty ammonia cylinders returned before being completely empty which saved the organisation money.
Case Study Three: Electric Power Transmission & Distribution – Transformer Oil Levels
A steel production facility used our instrumentation to inspect oil levels in their transformers. There were two types of transformers present on site and there were hundreds of these across the site.
- 33kV to 6.6kV
- 6.6kV to 440V
Many of these transformers did not have the means to indicate the oil level externally and to assess these levels they had to shut the transformer down and open the covers. Additionally, there were concerns about the accuracy and reliability of the existing built-in level meters on those that did have an external monitoring capability. This resulted in a significant downtime in the power distribution network in the production facility.
Portatank® is capable of identifying fluid levels quickly and is very simple to operate, using this the company was able to externally inspect oil levels on “live” transformers.
See the Portatank® in action.
