wireless ehandbook

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table o contentS

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Lw-Ct Mnitrin Prtect Pricey Pmpwss h yz vs u ss s y

By Dave Joseph, Emerson Process Management, Rosemount Analytical

LEaks PosE ongoing process challenges. Plants

with heat exchangers, condensers or jacketed ves-sels ace the prospect o the cooling water or other

heat-transer medium leaking into the process or

vice versa. Tis can cause contamination and loss o

product. Leakage can prompt even larger problems

when it leads to destruction o valuable equipment,

as the FujiFilm chemical plant in Dayton, enn.,

can attest.

Te site, which makes photosensitive chemicals,

eeds dry materials and ammable solvents, includ-

ing thionyl chloride (SOCl2), to a reactor used to

precipitate crystals. Te volatile solvent is pulled rom

the reactor and routed through a heat exchanger using

a liquid ring vacuum pump. Unortunately, SOCl2

produces hydrochloric acid when it comes into contact

with moisture. When acid rom the process got past

the pumps seal, it damaged the pump. In the last

three years, the $28,000 pump was replaced multiple

times due to corrosion.

Tree alternatives could prevent the problem:

using exotic materials o construction, installing an

intermediate tank to capture vapor (not possible in the

available space), or analyzing the seal uid to detect

leaks beore they caused damage. Opting or a simpleanalysis system was the proverbial no-brainer.

Leak detection can be perormed using either

pH or conductivity analysis. Te choice depends on

the process. For pH to be used, a small amount o

contaminant must cause a measurable change in the

pH o the process; or conductivity to be suitable, the

contaminant must signicantly alter the conductiv-

ity. Conductivity can detect leaks o acids, bases or

even salts but requires stable process conductivity or

best results.

Te chemicals to be monitored by FujiFilm

aected pH. So, the plant installed a pH analyzer

in the vacuum pump seal loop (Figure 1). It chose

a wireless unit to obviate power and output wiring.Because a wireless gateway already was in place or

other process control applications, implementing

the analyzer was easy. It was incorporated into a

sel-organizing network that allows each device to

unction as a data repeater. Tus, i any pathway

becomes interrupted, data automatically travels via

an alternative pathway, assuring uptime. Te pH

monitoring system cost less than $3,500 to imple-

ment and was up and running in two days.

Since the plant installed the pH analyzer in

June 2011, it hasnt suered any corrosion-related

pump ailures.

In the FujiFilm application, the normal pH o

the seal uid (water) is approximately 7; at that

point, corrosion is minimized. o protect the

vacuum pump seal integrity, when the analyzer

nds the pH has dropped below 3, the process is

stopped and the system is ushed to clear out the

acid and return the process pH to 7.

Te FujiFilm application is an excellent example

WIRELEss pH aNaLYZER

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o appropriate use o pH-based leak detection because

when the process pH is near neutral (7.0) the pH

response is greater, resulting in increased sensitivity

to detect leaks. In general, however, pH may respond

dierently to the presence o contaminant, depending

upon the process pH and the chemistry involved.

In dilute processes or ones without buering

action, its easy to predict the pH response. able

1 shows the best leak-detection sensitivity possible

or various process and contaminant pH values. It

gives sensitivities in terms o the volume raction

o the contaminant detectable, expressed rom

percent through parts per billion by volume. Esti-

mating sensitivity requires considering the normal

pH range o the process and the contaminant,checking the maximum and minimum pH o each

against one another, and then using the poorest

sensitivity.

Processes containing weak acids and bases,

such as acetic acid, hydrouoric acid, ammonia and

sodium carbonate, have weaker pH response, which

reduces the sensitivity o leak detection. Tis is due

to buering action, i.e., the tendency o a solution to

resist pH changes. It oten is difcult to predict just

how the process pH will respond in such mixtures.

itrating a sample o the process with the contami-

nant will give the sensitivity it is the volume o

contaminant required to cause a 1.0 pH or other

reliably measured pH change divided by the volume

o process uid titrated. As an initial check, consult

able 1 to see i theres the possibility o acceptable

sensitivity beore titration.

For FujiFilm, the implementation o pH analysis

or leak detection was a low-cost solution. Te option

to employ wireless technology urther reduced costs

and implementation time.

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Contaminant pH 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

10 Molar Acid 9.0 t 900 90 9.0 0.9 1.0 90 0.9 9.0 90 900 9.0 t

1 Molar Acid 9.0 t 900 90 9.0 10 0.9 9.0 90 900 9.0 t 9.0%

1 9.0 t 900 90 0.1 9.0 90 900 9.0 t 9.0%

2 9.0 t 900 1.0 90 900 9.0 t 9.0%

3 9.0 t 10 900 9.0 t 9.0%

4 100 9.0 t 9.0%

5 1.0 t 9.0%

6 n/a

7 n/a

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10 9.0% 9.0 t 100

11 9.0% 9.0 t 900 10 9.0 t

12 9.0% 9.0 t 900 90 1.0 900 9.0 t

13 9.0% 9.0 t 900 90 9.0 0.1 90 900 9.0 t

1 Molar Base 9.0% 9.0 t 900 90 9.0 0.9 10 9.0 90 900 9.0 t

10 Molar Base 9.0 t 900 90 9.0 0.9 90 1.0 0.9 9.0 90 900 9.0 t

EsTIMaTED sENsITIVITY

RELaTED CoNTENT oNCHEMICaLPRoCEssINg.CoM

pH Measurement Faces Acid Test, www.

ChemicalProcessing.com/articles/2006/183.html



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5/9 5

Wirele Prve it Wrthps y s -vu s

By Tim Gerami, PPG Industries, and Jerry Moon, Emerson Process Management

THE PPg Lake Charles, La., acility is one o theworlds largest producers o chlorine, caustic soda and

vinyl chloride. Te site always is looking or operat-

ing economies and views more efcient control o its

chemical processes as crucial or achieving many sav-

ings. So, the plant has been breaking new ground in

the past ew years, using wireless communications to

obtain more high-value measurements than operators

ever dreamed possible allowing them to respond

quickly and eectively to changing process conditions.

Te case or wireless was compelling because, in a

well-established plant like this, its both very expensive

and time-consuming to get new measurement pointsonline using conventional instrumentation. Te cost

or introducing wired instruments in many remote

areas o the 765-acre site is prohibitive; wiring would

run rom $20/oot to many times that depending on

the amount o engineering and construction involved.

Wireless devices now supply data rom numerous

points that never could have been justied otherwise.

Tanks to these devices, the plant has achieved

savings o at least $500,000 over the past two-and-

one-hal years.

For example, operators use wireless inormation

daily to control steam header temperatures across the

entire site, watching or cold spots and making load

balancing and sharing adjustments to maintain super-

heated steam plant-wide.

WIRELEss INITIaTIVE

PPG ormed a cross-unctional team in January

2005 with six persons rom the Lake Charles plant

and three rom corporate I to investigate wireless

protocols or their utility, reliability, saety and se-

curity. Tis led to a written proposal in mid-2005

or a wireless pilot installation; the rst wireless

eort started in early 2006 with WiFi and WiMax

installations. It was thought that WiMax couldbe used to blanket the plant with video cameras

to monitor key locations but this initiative was

abandoned, partly due to the high cost o WiMax

stations and partly due to lack o compatible

products.

In early 2006, the ocus instead turned to blanket-

ing the plant with hundreds o WiFi access points

rather than two or three WiMax.

Te plant installed points rom January 2006 to

April 2007 in A Caustic, one o three units produc-

ing sodium hydroxide. Although the points were sup-

posed to be weatherproo, they couldnt withstand the

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industrial environment. At that time no vendor was

making true industrial WiFi access points. However,

the site now has more than 70 WiFi access points

and, in the uture, the entire acility, including park-

ing lots, will be WiFi-riendly.In the meantime, the plant established automated

long-distance wireless communications with remote

brine elds that are eight to 13 miles away. It later re-

placed the original WiMax stations with proprietary

5.9-gHz access stations eliminating telephone

lease line costs o $35,000 to $40,000 per year and

enhancing personal productivity.

Te learning continued via investigating and testing

every wireless system available. Along the way, the wire-

less team adopted the PPG Corporate I security policy

calling or WPA2 encryption and authentication.

suCCEssuL TEsT

Near the end o 2005 the plant agreed to serve as

a beta test site or Emersons early wireless trans-

mitters. It established in A Caustic a small Smart

Wireless network, which ran or several months.

At one time, that unit boasted 900-MHz networks

rom Emerson and a second supplier, plus WiFi and

WiMax; coexistence never was an issue.

Early prototypes used existing instrument

housings modied simply by having holes drilled,

O-rings afxed and antennas attached to the wirelesstransmitters. All ailures stemmed rom either water

intrusion or low battery voltage. With no sunlight or

solar panels, power had to come rom batteries. Te

original ones lasted only about three months, which

was satisactory because this was only a test.

Te basic concept o a sel-organizing wireless

mesh network proved itsel in A Caustic, where the

inrastructure is extremely dense with pipes, buildings

and cranes. Users dont need to congure the net-

work. Instead, it actually organizes itsel in response

to plant changes that aect the way radio signals

propagate whether those changes are physical,

such as equipment starting or stopping and railcars

rolling by, other radio trafc, or due to an outside

inuence such as a thunderstorm (Figure 1). As a

result, theres no need or preliminary radio requency

(RF) site surveys or assumptions about what the RF

characteristics are going to be like at any one time. It

simply doesnt make any dierence.

Because the RF space cant be controlled, Emer-

sons Smart Wireless systems are based on the assump-

tion that changes will occur ast and oten. Te industrialenvironment is expected to be dynamic with no time

or technicians to react. Tereore, the wireless network

automatically adjusts. I an obstruction blocks line-o-

sight communications, the network nds a new path

or transmissions to reach the gateway (receiver).

Tis works because all eld devices are transmit-

ters and repeaters and are a part o the mesh. Tey are

transceivers with an inherent system-level power-sav-

ing characteristic. Te sel-organizing mesh technol-

ogy signicantly reduces requirements or commu-

nications inrastructure (ewer gateways) because it

allows transmissions to avoid obstacles and adapt to

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7/9 7

changing conditions in the acility. Te network oper-

ates perectly well in very dense plant environments.

A wireless network must take battery lie into

account. Te more requently a battery-powered

instrument updates, the sooner the batteries run

down. Setting the devices to a low-power mode can

save energy, enabling them to operate or an extend-

ed time on one battery. Run times depend on howoten the device is used but battery lie currently can

exceed 10 years by using a low update rate.

A mesh also inherently needs less power than

direct connections. For example, to transmit a signal

1,000 eet, two devices, each with a range o 500

eet, in a mesh network dont require nearly as much

power as a single device transmitting over the entire

1,000-t distance.

Te devices also are secure and meet the require-

ments established by the PPG wireless team. Te

rst o these is encryption with seemingly random

symbols that surround each transmission. Even i a

message is intercepted, it takes too long to decode to

be o use. Encryption keys are changed requently

so anyone trying to read intercepted messages by

comparing them wont be able to break the code

beore its changed.

In addition, a transmission is ignored unless its au-

thenticated meaning that the sending and receiving

devices must recognize one another. A third step is data

verication by the receiving device. Te authentica-

tion and verication rules are built into the devices, so

no oreign device can intercept a transmission or sendbogus inormation to the receiving station.

Te Emerson devices also eature channel hop-

ping, a built-in protection against jamming o chan-

nels by either intentional or non-intentional sources.

Te wireless mesh system has proven to be

incredibly reliable (Figure 2). Ater installation and

commissioning, everything comes online within ve

to 10 minutes and seems to be totally awless. We

put a Smart Wireless gateway out there, start light-

ing up the sensors, and they talk. I havent had to do

any maintenance. It just runs, explains Reese Borel,

PPG process control specialist.

NuMERous aPPLICaTIoNs

Uses o Smart Wireless at the Lake Charles plant,

some o which are in test stage, include:

Steam header temperature profling. wenty wire-

less Rosemount transmitters are proling tempera-

tures on the 175-lb and 400-lb steam headers across

the entire plant. Operators watch these data every day

to check or cold spots and adjust steam throughput

to maintain superheated steam plant-wide. Saturated

steam can harm some pieces o equipment.

Redundant tank level measurement. Eight wire-

less transmitters now monitor caustic tank levels,

providing backup or primary radar level measure-ments. Te wireless inormation goes rom the

gateway to the plant distributed control system

(DCS), where the logistics operators responsible or

transerring material into and out o the tanks use

those levels to avoid overlling. Tese operators no

longer have to manually measure the tanks every

shit instead they do it only about once a month

when a deviation occurs between wireless signals

and radar readings typically because the radar

units have become coated with salt.

Vibration monitoring o centriuges. o test the

ability o wireless to provide vibration data, our

u 2. t ss vs v v fss .

HIgH RELIaBILITY



8/9 8

transmitters were very quickly installed on Salt

Bird centriuges (Figure 3). Tey provide a continu-

ous stream o vibration data back to the control

room to help operators determine when mainte-

nance is due.

Deluge valve monitoring.Wireless discrete

transmitters are deployed in three areas o the plant

alongside existing deluge valves (each o which con-sists o one water and one air valve). Te transmitters

monitor or low and high pressures using dual inde-

pendent sensors, and alerts operators to any problem

with the deluge systems.

Tank pressure monitoring. wo wireless pressure

transmitters now check tank pressures in a remote

area o the plant where no wired path was available.

Wireless tablet PCs. Te plant is testing these

devices to enable personnel to use the AMS Suite:

Intelligent Device Manager predictive-maintenance

sotware to check transmitters, look up inormation

on existing valves or transmitters, and remotely view

the DCS screens.

Once a test succeeds, the plant adopts the ap-

plication. In all o these cases, wireless instrumenta-

tion was chosen as the best means to save time and

money or PPG while delivering useul data rom

the eld.

a VaLuaBLE sTaRT

For a site the size o Lake Charles, retrieving data

rom some areas via wiring is cost prohibitive. In

addition, getting conduit and monitoring instru-

ments into areas like steam headers ranges rom

very diicult to impossible. Wireless technology

delivers important data rom measurements that

previously couldnt have been made. he plant is

continually discovering additional applications

or wireless to increase process reliability and

improve operations.

TIM gERaMI s s s s vs

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CENTRIugE CHECkINg

RELaTED CoNTENT oNCHEMICaLPRoCEssINg.CoM

Study Supports Wireless in Capital Projects,Emerson Says, www.ChemicalProcessing.com/in

dustrynews/2009/009.html

Wireless Start s to Mesh, www.ChemicalPro

cessing.com/articles/2008/208.html

Wireless Proponents Take HART, www.Chemi

calProcessing.com/articles/2007/155.html

Where is Wireless Going?, www.ChemicalPro


Plants Smarten Up, www.ChemicalProcessing.

com/articles/2006/077.html

Wireless Wins Wider Role, www.ChemicalPro




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9/99

Capture elusive energy savings with real-time automated steam trap monitoring.

Knowing the status of every steam trap could enable you to save up to 20% of steam loss and $4 million dollars

a year in lost energy. With the Rosemount 708 Wireless Acoustic Transmitter, youll have instant visibility to all your

critical steam traps through a non-intrusive, WirelessHART monitoring system. Backed by Emersons proven

experience in Smart Wireless field instrumentation, the Rosemount 708 will enable you to effec tively and easily

capture significant energy cost savings without running all over the plant. Talk to Emerson. Were the experts in

wireless so you dont have to be.

rosemount.com/stopsteamlossThe Emerson logo is a trademark and a service mark of Emerson Electric Co. 2012 Emerson Electric Co.

Escaping steam means lost energyand lost profits. If only I could monitormy steam traps without running allover the plant.

You CAN Do THAT

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