Improved predictive maintenance efforts, along with enhanced business performance, for power generation companies are the goals of a recent agreement between SmartSignal Corp. and General Physics (GP).

“We will share equipment mechanical, electrical, efficiency, and thermal cycle performance results between our product lines,” said Joe Nasal, General Physics senior vice president. These “converging lines of evidence” will improve a plant’s ability to predict, diagnose, and prioritize pending equipment failures, and more quickly recognize and quantify performance shortfalls. For example, after being notified by SmartSignal of a deficient cooling tower performance incident, GP’s EtaPro technology will show the impact on condenser pressure, lost generation, and increased fuel cost, Nasal said.

With the information exchange enabled by this agreement, the companies expect that customers will be able to compare an asset’s relative operating performance against historical operating behavior using SmartSignal models and design operating behavior using GP EtaPro and embedded VirtualPlant models.

As a result, plant personnel will be able to use SmartSignal’s early warning of developing problems and General Physics’ performance calculations to:

• Verify abnormal conditions;
• Quantify the impact on capacity and heat rate from the developing problem; and
• More accurately diagnose and prioritize the impending problem; and