Parker Instrumentation shows space- and cost-saving solutions

Parker Instrumentation, of Barnstaple in the UK, will highlight its growing range of innovative modules that bring new efficiencies to process analysis system builders.

It is also launching a radical new type of instrument manifold system that it expects to set a new standard for connecting instruments to process lines. Developed over more than two years, and with considerable input from large-scale users, Parker believes it is the most significant development in instrumentation manifolds for many years.

The modular SP76-compliant substrate - IntraFlow - delivers a leap forward for process analytical and laboratory instrumentation flow control systems. Parker will highlight the new ability to provide users with complete assembled solutions including instruments and heaters from a single purchase order - as a result of teaming agreements with Honeywell and Intertec.

IntraFlow surface-mounting fittings dramatically reduce the amount of space required, minimising the volume of sample flow paths, speeding construction and reducing cost of ownership. Finished systems occupy typically around 25% of the space of a conventionally plumbed flow control system. Substrate fittings plug together in seconds using novel slip-fit connectors. No welding is required to build a system. The 1.5 inch (38.1 mm) footprint modules simply screw onto a 'pegboard' backplane that provides the connection force and rigidity for the finished flow control assembly, and may be disassembled rapidly for maintenance or re-use.

Parker Instrumentation's valve system for automated stream switching in gas and liquid analysis applications - R-max - employs surface-mounting techniques to dramatically reduce the size of control systems for process analysers and gas chromatographs. Purpose-designed for automated applications, the pneumatically operated R-max brings new levels of reliability and integrity to this application, the company claims, through the use of true three-way double-block-and-bleed valve modules that eliminate any possibility of cross contamination of fluid streams, combined with needle valves offering operating lifetimes in excess of a million cycles.

Systems are based on three components: valve modules, substrates housing the stream switching channels, and a venting unit. These interconnect using just two screws, allowing the number of streams to be extended without breaking the connections throughout the entire substrate.

Hall 9.0, Stand B9-B10