We are often challenged with competing requirements of containing cost, maintaining uptime and ensuring personnel safety. None more so than critical flow applications involving hazardous fluid.
It is a well known fact that preventing unscheduled shutdowns increases overall throughput. This is very difficult in case of critical applications where hazardous process fluids need to be dealt with for replacement or repair maintenance. Even Vortex technology may struggle to effectively overcome the challenges faced by plant maintenance engineers to perform maintenance, meter health check and repair replacement.
Due to this, precautionary measures are considered in plant design by including bypass lines with shut-off valves where the flow meters are installed, to deal with unscheduled maintenance calls. If the shut-off valves are not closed properly reason being either human error or wear and tear of the valve itself, it may risk the safety of personnel attending the maintenance call.
One way to counter these issues is to install vortex flowmeter with non-gasket design and capability to ensure the vortex sensor is isolated from the process. Having this type of vortex in place means enhanced safety by limiting personnel exposure, and maximize product throughput by eliminating the need to shutdown the process to maintain a vortex sensor. In addition, if the vortex can offer ability to verify health of the transmitter by simulating the vortex flow signal, then a complete verification of the electrical components of the flowmeter is possible while the process is up and running. This is nicely explained in the refinery application note. You can achieve the goal of reduced maintenance cost and increased product throughput due to higher process availability and increased personnel safety too.
Do you have a challenge in meeting your production goals, or do you have high maintenance cost and risk of safety incidents?