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Pump Integration, Inc. offers the following Condition Monitoring options:

SHORT-TERM MONITORING SERVICES

Pump Integration, Inc. has successfully installed industrial grade pressure, temperature and vibration transducers on various pumps to determine their operational characteristics over short periods of time ranging from a few hours to several weeks of nonstop data acquisition, display and logging. In the case shown below, several boiler feedwater pumps were experiencing vibration trips on start up. The problem was random in its nature, only happening once or twice a week, but not necessarily to the same pump.

Examination of the DCS plots for the start up period showed a high vibration spike at the instant of motor current in-rush. The proximity probes went to the maximum full scale value and decay down over a one to two minute time period. This seemed improbable so our data logging was setup to measure the vertical and horizontal vibration on both the Inboard and Outboard bearing housings. Examination of the startup plot (below) shows that infact there is a mechanical "kick" when starting the motor but it lasts for only two or three seconds. The short time duration of the mechanical "kick" as measured using the data logger demonstrated the improbability of the shaft vibrating at greater than 10 MIL pp and slowly decaying to a lower steady state level during that time period, while the bearing housing is vibrating at only 0.15 in/sec RMS constantly after decaying down almost immediately. This information allowed the plant owner to correct the root cause of the instrument circuit noise present on the analog front end of their DCS to eliminate the random high vibration trips on start up. The data acquisition system is capable of collecting up to twelve (12) current, low level or high level voltage inputs, thermocouple inputs and RTD inputs for the measurement of pressure, temperature, vibration, flow, etc.

LONG-TERM MONITORING SERVICES

Pump Integration, Inc. can supply permanent installations of site specific industrial grade test instrumentation connected to a locally mounted weather proofed data logging system. This local (to the pump) data logging system would then be connected to a host computer in the control room via a simple Ethernet connection. This system configuration has two distinct advantages for plant and equipment operators, (a) the real time inspection of critical operational data remotely (in the control room) and (b) the connection of several data loggers (one for each pump) to a central data display with backup data logging. This information can be used to ascertain the hydraulic performance, mechanical health and operational vibration characteristics for boiler feedwater pumps, circulating water pumps, heater drain pumps and condensate pumps. The plot at the right shows a significant increase in suction pressure fluctuations with a change in discharge pressure. The data system can prove invaluable to plant operators in avoiding possible detrimental operating conditions, thereby extending the life of their critical equipment or increasing their availability for production.

DESIGN ASSISTANCE OF PLANT DCS SYSTEMS

Pump Integration, Inc. has extensive experience in signal transduction, signal conditioning and signal transmission. That expertise can be used assist end-users, equipment operators or construction engineering firms in evaluating the suitability of a proposed Digital Control System with specific attention directed towards the concerns of the analog front-end, instrumentation issues and the data requirements of the plant pumping systems.

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