Turbomachinery health: Controlling large equipment like a process unit

By Control Engineering Staff October 3, 2007

Large pieces of rotating equipment, especially gas and steam turbine trains, can be as complicated as a process unit in their needs for monitoring, instrumentation and control. Keeping them running efficiently requires extensive sensor hardware coupled to a system to gather and analyze the information. Emerson Process Management recently made a major advance in their turbomachinery health monitoring offering with the integration of their CSI 6000 and PlantWeb architecture with API 670 certification.

Through the PlantWeb digital plant architecture, the CSI 6000 machinery health monitor integrates with Emerson’s AMS suite of predictive maintenance applications enabling maintenance personnel to improve plant availability and performance. Further integration with Emerson’s Ovation and DeltaV automation systems provide operations with essential machinery information. The company points out the importance of certification to API 670, which is the American Petroleum Institute’s globally accepted definition of industry best practices for turbomachinery protection.

“Turbomachinery is at the heart of every process plant and, to operate with confidence, our users need predictive diagnostics, performance monitoring and protection systems integrated with process automation,” says John Berra, president, Emerson Process Management. “By delivering these capabilities through the PlantWeb digital plant architecture, Emerson enables users to improve machinery performance over the life cycle of a plant.”

Emerson says its smart machinery health monitoring capabilities integrate with the process automation environment enabling maintenance and operations personnel to maximize equipment reliability and plant performance. The new CSI 6000 machinery health monitor protects critical machinery from catastrophic failures, permitting orderly shutdown of equipment and related processes.

“The CSI 6000 machinery health monitor complements our leading online machinery monitoring solutions and AMS suite predictive maintenance software,” said Craig Llewellyn, president of Emerson’s asset optimization division. “Now our users can turn to Emerson for the most comprehensive and integrated machinery monitoring capabilities.”

A complete range of sensors, adapters, cables, connectors, converters, and fittings is available for new installations, retrofits, or replacement of sensors during an overhaul. Instrumentation adjustments or change-outs can be made while the machine is running. Emerson offers services to assist users with system design, installation, configuration and startup, training, and ongoing support.

—Edited by Peter Welander, process industries editor, PWelander@cfemedia.com , Control Engineering Weekly News