How New Level Monitoring Devices Help Improve Plant Safety

Related Vendors

DÜPERTHAL Sicherheitstechnik GmbH & Co. KG

Anton Paar GmbH

ProMinent GmbH

Emerson Process Management GmbH & Co. OHG

Emerson Process Management GmbH & Co.OHG

Improved Reliability

Another challenge facing plant owners and operators is to maximise reliability. Ensuring reliability is vital. Every time a device requires unscheduled maintenance, it not only adversely affects plant efficiency but also safety, as it involves maintenance workers having to spend time in potentially dangerous environments.

Level Measurement

How Wireless Vibrating Fork Frequency Monitoring Improves Process Safety

To support enhanced reliability, the latest non-contacting radars for process industries use Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) technology. That means that they continuously transmit and receive echo information from the measured surface, as opposed to traditional technology that only transmits and receives radar signals in pulses. FMCW technology is not new, but is rather a well-established technology for the most reliable and accurate level measurements. However, recent developments with unique energy efficient radar chips have enabled the latest FMCW radars to better fit the infrastructure of process industries by being 2-wire loop-powered instruments with very low power voltage requirements.

Another way in which new generation devices are helping to provide improvements in reliability is through enhanced diagnostics. The smart diagnostics within the latest generation of vibrating fork level switches enable operators to continuously monitor the device’s electronic and mechanical health and provide greater insight into the condition of the switch. This supports predictive maintenance practices by identifying potential problems before they become serious. Any build-up, fork blockage, or excessive corrosion can be detected, giving an indication that maintenance may be required and allowing this to be scheduled during periods of downtime. This not only improves the reliability of the device, therefore increasing safety, but also augments plant efficiency.

The latest switches also provide functionality to monitor voltage and current drawn over the device’s lifetime, with a process alert for potential issues that could affect reliability, such as corrosion. Further functions help to configure appropriate density settings to calculate and maintain optimum and consistent switching points in fluids of unknown properties, so that the device always switches with the highest degree of reliability.

Similarly, the latest non-contacting radars not only have diagnostics to continuously monitor the device’s health but also enhanced abilities to provide early alerts in case supplied power starts to drop, if antenna build-up becomes severe, or if there is excessive foaming. Every alert comes with recommended actions, and supporting preventative maintenance in this way streamlines the troubleshooting process, increases reliability and further reduces safety risks.

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