Multi-deployment Remote Online Condition Monitoring for Rotating Machinery

Reciprocating Compressors & Balance of Plant Continuous Monitoring

Client – Industrial Manufacturer of Rotating Equipment

Challenge

When these machines go down, it is expensive for the client, both monetarily and for their reputation. The client wanted a way to monitor these assets to catch potential failures before they become catastrophic. Many times, the machine shuts down and it is not known if it shut down for an electrical transient on a signal or a truly problematic rise in vibration, pressure, or temperature. Taking the asset offline to investigate can take weeks, so often it is turned back on without knowing if the problem will get worse or if was a glitch. Long term, the client’s goal is to gather enough data to be able to predict machine failures before they happen so they can plan their outages.

Solution

The solution to this problem was a remote online monitoring system utilizing off-the-shelf hardware. It has plans for deployment in dozens more over the coming months and years. Data is usually accessed remotely by a centralized team of data analysts. (Occasional lack of connectivity requires data to be transferred via sneakernet).

Benefits

Frequent assessment of assets to distinguish anomalies from failures requiring maintenance
Data being collected to enable the potential for future predictive maintenance
Remote monitoring anywhere in the world
Flexible monitoring configuration capabilities to accommodate a variety of deployed custom asset configurations

System Overview

The online monitoring system was developed utilizing custom software and off-the-shelf hardware. The software was developed by Viewpoint, and the hardware was selected by both the client and Viewpoint together as a team. The hardware utilized is an NI cRIO combined with one or more NI cDAQs per asset (including balance of plant equipment). TSN (Time-Sensitive Networking) allowed synchronous channels across multiple cDAQs.

The online monitoring system captures data 24/7, and every sample is used in trigger analysis, so no events are missed. When a signal trips a configured trigger level, a file is captured using pre- and post-trigger data. Notification emails are sent upon completion of each of these capture files. There are several trigger types.

Channels can be configured as several different types (accelerometer, tachometer, encoder, proximeter, pressure, temperature, voltage, current), and any number of channels can be configured up to a theoretical limit of 300 channels of input data, and most C Series modules can be used to capture analog data.

Inputs monitored:

Tachometer
Encoder
Vibration
Proximeter
Accelerometer
Pressure
Temperature
Voltage
Current

SOFTWARE FUNCTIONS
Continuous signal monitoring
Data capture and email notification on configurable condition triggering
Configurable measurement channels

HARDWARE USED
NI cRIO
NI cDAQ
NI C Series Digital Module
NI C Series Voltage Input Module
NI C Series Sound and Vibration Input Module
NI C Series Temperature Input Module