Photo Credit: IMI Critical Engineering

Valve Technology Reduces Compressor Surge Risk

With demanding performance requirements and targets for reducing emissions placing plant compressor equipment at risk of damage, proven anti-surge and compressor recycle valve technology can help the oil and gas industry avoid disruptive and costly unplanned compressor damage and consequently downtime.

To address these concerns, IMI Critical Engineering has developed an integrated anti-surge and compressor recycle valve that combines multiple, co-acting technologies to balance efficient production and equipment health. The valve is comprised of IMI CCI’s patented DRAG Control Valve technology with SC/V actuators and smart, high-performance FasTrak or QuickTrak controllers and positioners. The solution’s individual parts, developed in-house at IMI, continually interact to reduce the chance of cycle trips to optimize performance at start-up and during operation.

Designed for operations in the oil and gas sectors, the valve also uses a high number of stages for small openings at low flow conditions. As a result, greater velocity and flow control is provided, meaning that fewer cycles are required to achieve product compression targets, reducing the carbon footprint. This provides another way for the industry to reduce emissions by making processes more efficient.

“In demanding applications, the valve manages high dynamic forces, so failure risks must be minimized for the best possible performance,” said Mike Semens-Flanagan, global engineering director at IMI Critical Engineering. “Similarly, valve issues including vibration, noise and erosion caused by the wide differential pressures that occur during these operations can impact nearby equipment if not addressed.”

Semens-Flanagan continues: “Having greater control over compressor systems is crucial to ensuring optimal flow levels through the valve and improving plant sustainability in line with ever-tightening environmental legislation. Our unique, fully integrated anti-surge and compressor recycling valve is an excellent example of this approach in action.

For more information on IMI’s anti-surge equipment portfolio, visit the company’s website.

AUMA Offers Coralink Networked Solutions for Actuators

Coralink provides closely networked support solutions for AUMA actuators. It helps plant operators to cope with growing challenges, supporting them across all phases of the plant’s lifecycle, from commissioning and predictive maintenance to active lifecycle management of their AUMA actuators. Modules including the AUMA Assistant App, AUMA CDT and AUMA Cloud interact seamlessly to help plant operators cut costs and enhance plant availability.

“Coralink ensures efficient processes and sustained plant availability. Plant operators can tap the full digital potentials of their AUMA actuators,” says Kevin Nietupski, product management service at AUMA.

At the heart of Coralink is the ability to evaluate the extensive operating data that AUMA actuators record automatically in their role as intelligent field devices. The data can easily be read from each AUMA actuator, including via a smartphone, and then analyzed.

“A new feature is a detailed action plan with concrete recommendations for action, which is accessible through just a few clicks,” Nietupski says. “By means of these automatically generated recommendations plant operators benefit from the combined expertise of AUMA service experts and decades of field experience. Plant operators can identify maintenance requirements at an early stage and take corrective measures in good time.”

Due to its scalability, Coralink saves time and money even when operators simply use it to check the condition of individual actuators. In advanced applications, Coralink can be used for comprehensive monitoring of all the actuators on a plant, as well as to implement IIoT solutions.

AUMA provides Coralink free of charge in a very comprehensive basic version. The modules run on standard PCs and smartphones, and need no extra investment in IT infrastructure.

More information is available at coralink.auma.com.

Emerson Adds Data Server Technology to Improve Digital Transformation Outcomes

Photo Credit: Emerson

Emerson, a global software and engineering leader, is helping process manufacturers improve performance and sustainability by breaking down the data silos that make it difficult to digitally transform their reliability and maintenance strategies. AMS Device Manager Data Server securely extends intelligent field device data to outside systems to make it easier for reliability and maintenance teams to further capitalize on modern advanced analytics software, providing a step change in operational efficiency and smart manufacturing.

For decades, process manufacturers have relied on asset management software to carefully deploy and monitor plant production assets — like measurement and analytical instrumentation, digital valve controllers, wireless gateways, and others — both within a single plant and across the enterprise. As plants have evolved, they’ve grown their technology stack to adopt a wide range of analytics, historians, machine learning, and advanced modeling to exploit and benefit from historically underused or inaccessible datasets from around the plant. AMS Device Manager Data Server publishes intelligent field device data nearly instantaneously to industrial software analytics solutions already in use by customers, eliminating the need for complex custom data integration and manual workarounds that often cause delayed results and siloed data. This data is relayed via secure industry protocols.

"To accelerate sustainability and profitability, today’s manufacturers are transforming via analytics-seeking to aggregate disparate, underused data, and further exploit it for positive business impact around the organization,” says Erik Lindhjem, vice president of Emerson’s reliability solutions business. “AMS Device Manager Data Server makes intelligent field device information such as configuration parameters, alerts, calibration data and others available, in near real-time, for advanced use in other software and applications our customers already use.”

AMS Device Manager Data Server makes it easy to import critical instrument and valve data into common dashboarding tools and applications like Microsoft PowerBI, Emerson software tools such as the Plantweb Optics platform, Plantweb Insight, Aspen MTell and AspenTech Inmation, plant historians and others.

Endress+Hauser Launches New Gateway

Endress+Hauser announces the launch of FieldGate SWG50, a new WirelessHART gateway primed for secure communication from your field devices. FieldGate SWG50 is a compact and cost-effective ready for Netilion integration while providing an easy-to-use solution for multiple standard monitoring applications across various industries. Netilion is a cloud-based IIoT ecosystem designed for industrial processes, connecting the physical and digital worlds to send information from the field straight to a phone, tablet or another device.

Photo Credit: Endress+Hauser

The WirelessHART gateway FieldGate SWG50 enables users to monitor measurements and health statuses using WirelessHART connectivity. This offering is an economical alternative to complex and costly cable installations, reducing expenditure for process automation by up to 30%. It is a cost-effective concept that adapts to the process plant, both in greenfield and brownfield applications, giving customers simple access to digital communication.

With the launch of FieldGate SWG50, Endress+Hauser expands its WirelessHART portfolio focused on straightforward implementation, set-up and management of different monitoring applications.

Routinely used in monitoring applications, the WirelessHART network is a solution for standard level measurement, energy management or machinery performance monitoring.

As a gateway ready for digitalization, the integration of FieldGate SWG50 into Netilion is simple and transparent using EdgeDevice SGC500, which is only available for purchase by Netilion users and for those with WirelessHART networks. This launch is the first of many new features Fieldgate SWG50 will receive.

FieldGate SWG50 can be paired with Endress+Hauser’s FieldPort SWA70 and SWA50 adapters. It also works and seamlessly integrates with any WirelessHART device on the market. Holistically, FieldGate SWG50 allows for:

• Network migration: Change the network ID and join keys for the complete network after the network is running
• A device list with color code for a simple understanding of the device status.
• 4 x RJ-45 connectors for easy access to the connection of plant and cloud networks as well as its web interface for configuration
• Redundant power supply
• Modbus TCP and HART-IP outputs
• Indoor housing rated at IP20 with DIN rail mounting
• Connection to 100 nodes
• CommDTM to see and configure devices behind SWA50 and SWA70 in FieldCare

To learn more, visit the company’s website.