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Actuators monitored on North Sea platform

A Controlstar Systems product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Feb 1, 2006

Add-on provides remote condition monitoring for 11 actuators at BP's North Sea Unity platform.

Controlstar Systems has developed an add-on to provide remote condition monitoring for Rotork's EH actuator range.

The project was undertaken to provide BP with performance information for 11 ESD actuators to be installed on its North Sea Unity platform.

Each actuator provides position and pressure data, along with 48 other digital status channels, at a rate of 100 updates per second.

A single Controlstar unit on the platform continuously monitors the data from each actuator.

The Controlstar detects when one or more actuators are performing an open or close operation, and performs a high-speed capture of the data from the actuator.

Once the open-close operation has completed, this captured file is transmitted to a PC running Controlstar's Scada software, where the data can be viewed.

The software shows a live update of all the analogue and digital data, updated once per second.

Operating times and performance are logged to provide preventative maintenance data.

Position and movement monitoring includes operating pressure and status.

Remote monitoring of operating commands includes local and remote, ESD and pressure stroke.

Using the software, an operator can view a history of open and close operations performed by each actuator, and view multiple graphical plots simultaneously.

The captured data consists of position and pressure measurements at up to 100Hz sample rates.

The graphical capabilities of Scada allow multiple captures to be overlaid, showing how the performance of an actuator varies over time.

The data can be plotted in various ways, including pressure-and-position against time, and pressure against position.

A primary purpose of the system is to monitor partial strokes.

This is a maintenance operation that involves closing the valve from 100% open to 90% open and then back to 100% open.

This sequence allows the movement of the actuator to be observed without completely closing the pipeline.

Normally the valve must be completely closed and reopened as part of an annual maintenance operation.

However, this is extremely costly.

Since a partial-stroke only closes the valve by 10%, the production flow through the pipeline is not impaired.

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