Ovation Control System Extended with Embedded Machinery Health Monitoring & Protection

Phil Black - PII Editor 21/10/2015

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New Ovation Machinery Health™ Monitor enhances operator efficiency and simplifies asset prediction and protection

Having to manage and maintain multiple, disparate systems is complex and time-consuming, and can potentially threaten plant availability – a top concern of management. To help address these concerns, Emerson now offers its power generation and water/wastewater industry customers native machinery health monitoring and protection capability within the Ovation distributed control system.

Built on years of proven machinery protection experience, the Ovation Machinery Health Monitor leverages the power of the Ovation platform through a high-performance I/O module dedicated to machinery health functions.

With installation as simple as inserting the module into a spare I/O slot, the Ovation Machinery Health Monitor eliminates the risks, wasted time and increased costs typically associated with configuring and integrating two separate systems.

Eliminating the need to integrate standalone vibration and health monitoring systems reduces potential points of failure, increasing equipment and process reliability.

With the Ovation Machinery Health Monitor, operators receive alerts from a single set of common plant HMIs and no longer need to manually check machinery functions through a separate system, enhancing their awareness of potential plant or safety issues.

And, by eliminating synchronisation across multiple systems and using familiar Ovation tools, configuration and upgrades are faster and far less complex. The ability to troubleshoot and analyse data is also enhanced through the use of familiar Ovation alarming, trending, historical data collection and sequence-of-events monitoring functions.

The Ovation Machinery Health Monitor also reduces the risk of cyber attack by eliminating links to standalone systems and isolating process information – all of which can help facilities meet NERC CIP and other security regulations.

Delivering control, machinery protection and predictive health monitoring on a single, common platform, not only improves asset performance, but reduces spare parts inventory, maintenance, training and upgrade time – all contributing to lower overall cost of ownership.

The Ovation Machinery Health Monitor incorporates Emerson’s unique PeakVue™ technology to predict early failures of rolling element bearings and delivers standard API 670 machinery protection for critical plant assets, including turbines, pumps, motors, compressors and centrifuges. The new module is designed to be scalable and can be implemented online in phases so that protection and prediction strategies can be easily added as needs evolve.

“Consolidating both machinery health and protection functions into a single control system architecture offers a number of significant benefits to power generation and water/wastewater customers,” said Steve Schilling, vice president, technology, Emerson Process Management Power & Water Solutions.

“In addition to enhancing reliability and operator awareness of potential issues with critical plant equipment, the native module reduces operational complexity and rotating asset maintenance, simplifies lifecycle management, and enhances security and overall plant safety.”