Condition Monitoring and Wireless Vibration Transmitter

Asset management in the modern industrial era is the enabler for optimized profits by exploiting assets to their maximum potential. Industrial asset management takes into consideration all the assets needed for production and distribution of goods and services.

Therefore it is not concerned only with measurement of assets and resources but also analyzing data and quickly taking business decisions based on information collected.

In the oil and gas industry the process plants are quite complex and consist of expensive and production critical equipment. As the plants condition and performance degrades over the time due to wear from several factors, this has a negative impact to the production and the costs associated with it. Asset management strategies aim to counter this impact by systematic condition monitoring of equipment to avoid unplanned production downtime and to reduce operational expenses by optimizing maintenance planning. Therefore the primary benefits of an asset management strategy are increased asset availability and performance, and maximized operations and maintenance effectiveness.

Wireless technology plays a major role when it comes to vibration condition monitoring of rotating equipment. In the past, before the arrival of wireless technology at the plant floor, the installation of sensors to monitor vibrations was not an easy task due to extensive wiring needed to reach the outmost locations of the plant. Wireless sensors eliminate this problem and offer simplicity of installation, flexibility and scalability for future expansions. The smaller size i.e. the WiMon100 sensors, allow for installations in confined spaces where picked up vibrations are an indication of equipment early malfunction. WiMon Data Manager is a valuable tool for system configuration, scheduled data collection and simple analyses of vibration and temperature data.

In combination with ABB Analyst, the two of them make a powerful data interpretation suite for equipment vibration monitoring.

For a further reading, visit ABB Integrated Operations.