Process sensors, wireless transmitters, help pump diagnostics

Applying vibration and temperature sensors with wireless transmitters, paired to local or cloud diagnostics, can help keep pumps running safely and reliably. 

By Mark T. Hoske October 4, 2020

In the “old days,” process technicians or process control engineers could walk through the process facility, listening here and feeling for vibration there.

If those process control experts haven’t retired yet, they may soon, and will the facility run to fail then? Or will critical assets, like certain pumps and motors, have diagnostic sensors that compare current operating conditions to optimal conditions and notify the right people when degradation starts rather than everyone finding out when degradation finishes?

Don’t run to fail. Install appropriate process vibration and temperature sensors and diagnostics on plant assets.

New Products for Engineers

The New Products for Engineers Database has sensors that could help with pump diagnostics. Summaries follow with links for more information.

ABB Ability Smart Sensor

The ABB Ability Smart Sensor, originally introduced for Dodge mounted bearings, also is available for pumps. As part of the ABB Ability Digital Powertrain, the sensor enables “health checks.” The smart sensor technology provides an early indicator of any potential problems by assessing the condition of bearings from vibration and temperature information. This helps to prevent downtime on applications.

ABB Ability Smart Sensor for pumps 

LoRaWAN Wireless Condition Monitoring Sensor

The WISE-2410 is a LoRaWAN wireless conditional monitoring sensor integrated with ARM Cortex-M4 Processor, LoRa transceiver, 3-axis accelerometer and temperature sensor. Battery lifecycle is 2 years with IP66 enclosure.

Advantech 

Bently Nevada Ranger Pro

The Ranger Pro Wireless Condition Monitoring vibration sensor from Bently Nevada monitors velocity, acceleration, temperature, time-based waveforms, spectra and peak-demod spectrum. It’s built for plant managers and operators in power generation, oil and gas and other related industrial markets. The sensor enables monitoring and optimization of reliability of low- and medium-criticality machines, which allows for establishing or expanding existing reliability programs, use of current data, reduction of maintenance costs and unplanned failures and longer machinery life. It is designed for use in hazardous or difficult to access environments where wired solutions are impractical.

Bently Nevada 

Wirepas mesh units and mesh-sensor units

Battery-powered Wirepas Mesh technology mesh units and mesh-sensor units from Fujitsu Components America simplify construction of large-scale decentralized networks to allow scalable, reliable and cost-effective IoT solutions for position tracking and sensor data collection. The devices enable power saving, high-density networks with interference tolerance channel selection, transmitting power control and autonomous network rerouting capability. If the network environment changes, adds and/or removes the end device, or if a device failure occurs, the mesh topology and protocols will automatically reconfigure the mesh network.

Fujitsu Components America Inc. 

Alta Advanced Vibration Meter

Monnit’s Alta Advanced Vibration Meter is a remote monitoring device that features a configurable frequency measurement range from 0.4 to 4800 Hz (24 to 288,000 rpm). This vast range enables the sensor to identify abnormal vibrations in a variety of applications. It uses an accelerometer to track vibration and frequency on three axes. The sensor captures data for vibration frequency and velocity, displacement or acceleration. The meter also has the ability to report duty cycle as well as temperature, providing more key metrics to protect important assets and operations. If a parameter exceeds a user’s set thresholds, an alert is issued via text, email, or call, allowing the user to catch and correct.

Monnit Corp. 

Mark T. Hoske is content manager, Control Engineering, CFE Media and Technology, mhoske@cfemedia.com.

KEYWORDS: Pump diagnostics, vibration sensors, predictive maintenance

Vibration and temperature sensors can help with pump diagnostics.

New Products for Engineers database contains sensor products that can help engineers.

Link to more information.

CONSIDER THIS 

How much money or downtime would you save if you had warning before a pump failed?

ONLINE 

www.controleng.com/NPE

Read a related article online. Predicting the end of unplanned downtime: Any unscheduled downtime will cause a major headache for engineers in the food and beverage manufacturing sector, but predictive maintenance can be a remedy.

Original content can be found at Control Engineering.


Author Bio: Mark Hoske has been Control Engineering editor/content manager since 1994 and in a leadership role since 1999, covering all major areas: control systems, networking and information systems, control equipment and energy, and system integration, everything that comprises or facilitates the control loop. He has been writing about technology since 1987, writing professionally since 1982, and has a Bachelor of Science in Journalism degree from UW-Madison.