GE Energy on October 14 announced the launch of its new Bently Nevada wireless condition monitoring solution, called Essential Insight .mesh. Designed to improve overall plant reliability, productivity and efficiency for remote and inaccessible plant equipment, the Essential Insight .mesh solution is now available and was unveiled at ISA Expo in Houston.
Essential Insight .mesh wireless condition monitoring system is a new way of delivering the current Bently Nevada monitoring capability. Previously, plant assets either had to be monitored via hardwired systems or through a walk around program using portable data collectors. Essential Insight .mesh enables temperature and vibration data to be transmitted wirelessly from the asset to the System 1 software platform. This enables plant operators to monitor assets that previously were not monitored due to remote locations, inaccessibility or hazardous areas and provides plant information, which was not available before.
The new solution’s wireless sensors enhance work safety for maintenance personnel by improving their ability to monitor equipment in hazardous areas. It also improves productivity and speeds up data analysis that can be accurately transmitted back to the System 1 software platform.
“Our Essential Insight .mesh wireless condition monitoring solution has been tested in the extreme environments of the oil and gas and power generation industries. It has been developed with some of our most meticulous customers,” said Brian Palmer, vice president, GE Energy, optimization and control. “It enables reliable and affordable condition monitoring on what can still be categorized as essential machinery where conventional technology has traditionally reached its limits.”
The Essential Insight .mesh solution consists of the following components:
• wSIM sensor – a wireless mesh network node that supports up to four sensor inputs; initially supporting vibration (dynamic waveform and static data) and temperature.
• Essential Insight .mesh repeater – a mesh-only node without I/O ports. This node extends the mesh network coverage for broader communications, but does not directly support physically connected I/O.
• Essential Insight .mesh manager gateway – a gateway node that enables communication with other networks and protocols; it also serves as the Essential Insight .mesh network manager.
• Transducers – rugged and reliable vibration (accelerometer) and thermocouple probes (additional measurements to follow).
For more than 50 years, the Bently Nevada name has been synonymous with machinery protection and condition monitoring. One of the four product lines that comprise the optimization and control portfolio, GE Energy’s advanced Bently Nevada condition monitoring solutions help optimize plant safety, uptime and efficiency.
