Plants and Refineries

Just as the operating conditions of plants and refineries become more and more extreme, pressure to maximise operation time and minimise unnecessary downtime continue to increase – all as the latest environmental and safety standards add their own burden to operators. To plan ahead with much greater certainty, you need a far better understanding of your assets than conventional monitoring can provide. That’s why Sensornet’s Digital Monitoring solutions offer a full profile of all vessels and pipelines, including hotspot detection and location, vessel wall thickness and corrosion rate quantification and process optimisation and control.

The thermal and chemical processes that occur within reactor vessels and columns can slowly erode and weaken the structure of the vessel. This effect can be very localised and as this weakening occurs the skin of the vessel is reduced causing a potential point of weakness/failure. This weak spot will have a temperature signature which differs from the rest of the vessel and will result in a hotspot (or cold spot depending on the process). By detecting this hotspot early on, action can be taken to prevent any accidents and minimise any downtime for the plant.

Detect hotspots in reactor vessels early to prevent any potential failures 
The Sensornet distributed temperature sensor can provide such an early warning system, thus improving overall safety of the plant. The Sensornet DTS will interrogate the fibre optic sensing cable which can be attached to the outside of the vessel thus providing a full temperature profile of the vessel. Typically this cable will be installed in a helical configuration on the outside of the vessel to provide maximum coverage. Sensornet offers a number of visualisation and communication options so that the operator can easily interpret the data and also integrate the DTS into their control system. Thus in the event of an alarm the Sensornet DTS can automatically activate the control system to take action.

Please click the link below for more information about our unique Digital Condition Monitoring solution

Download Digital Condition Monitoring Brochure