Material-sensitive routing for shared conduit systems

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#The present invention relates generally to industrial control systems and, more particularly, to systems and methods for facilitating movement of materials.

#FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a shared conduit system joining material sources (e.g. storage tanks) to material destinations (e.g. filling stations) as controlled by an industrial controller executing a program according to the present invention;

#FIG. 2 is a schematic representation of one shared conduit system showing multi-valve manifolds communicating between the shared conduit system and each of the material sources and material destinations;

#FIG. 3 is a detailed view of one manifold of FIG. 2 as it communicates with a material source showing a designation of upstream and downstream connection lines;

#Referring now to FIG. 1, a material transport system 10 may include material sources 12 communicating via primary conduits 14 with shared conduits 16. The shared conduits 16 may communicate, via secondary conduits 18, with material destinations 20. Such a system may be found, for example in a brewery, where the material sources 12 represent holding tanks for different types of beer and the material destinations 20 are bottle filling machines. Nevertheless the present invention is not limited to this particular application.

#The shared conduits 16 may provide a number of pipes 22 passing in parallel between the material sources 12 and material destinations 20 as controlled by electrically actuated valves 24. In this example, the valves 24, control the passage of fluid in an on/off state; however, generally the term valve should be considered to embrace any control of passage of material between conduits.

#The valves 24 receive signals from I/O modules 26 of an industrial control system 30, the latter which may communicate via a network 32 with a central programmable logic controller 34. The programmable logic controller 34 may communicate via the same or a different network 36 with a programming terminal 38 or other programmable logic controllers or equipment (not shown).