mud pump condition monitoring factory

Valmet DNA Condition Monitoring is an online monitoring system. By utilizing wireless or wired sensors and highly developed applications, the system provides real-time vibration condition monitoring data available anywhere, anytime. Valmet DNA Condition Monitoring can be used as a standalone solution or as a built-in part of the Valmet DNA Automation System, enabling all the relevant process and condition monitoring data to be available in a single system.

Valmet Maintenance Pad is a portable data collector and analyzer for route-based vibration condition monitoring, predictive maintenance tasks, and advanced vibration measurements. The collector consists of a rugged tablet PC, analysis software, and wireless measurement units.

Valmet’s comprehensive services for condition and runnability monitoring include everything from audits to planning, analysis, and diagnosis with expert specialist support. Our in-depth know-how helps you ensure board and paper, tissue, pulp, as well as energy production applications, run smoothly. The availableservicescan be an integral turnkey function in your monitoring program or part of a targeted effort to resolve issues or improve performance. We can easily customize services to suit requirements according to location, application process area, or specific machinery.

Our Analysis and Diagnosis service can be as simple as remote expert support for your condition monitoring organization, or Valmet can carry out regular online or periodical offline monitoring for you. Specialist Services include technical support for specific problems, such as bearing or gear wear, or full system maintenance using online vibration monitoring. For internal teams, we also offer a range of training services to help your operators carry out monitoring tasks themselves.

As an integral part of onshore and offshore drilling, mud pumps circulate drilling fluids to facilitate drilling oil and natural gas wells. Mud pumps stabilize pressure and support the well during the drilling process and drilling fluids provide friction reduction and a means to remove cuttings. A leak detection system for hex pumps was created for a hex mud pump with six pistons, six suction valves, and six discharge valves. The six pistons are driven by a rotating, asymmetric cam. The system monitors the suction and discharge valves using accelerometers.

Valve leaks in piston pumps are often discovered at a late stage when the leaks are so severe that they induce large discharge pressure fluctuations and create washout damage (Figure 1). When a severe leak is detected, it is localized manually by listening to the fluid modules while the pump is running but it is difficult to uniquely localize the leak and distinguish between a suction valve leak and a discharge valve leak.

Human exposure to hazards is the main disadvantage of manual detection, verification, and localization. Mud pumps convert large amounts of power and often output high pressures up to 350 Bar discharge. Additional equipment in pump rooms also generates high acoustic noise pressure levels that can exceed 100 dBA and cause health and hearing damage if humans are not correctly protected.

During a vibration monitoring project for hex pumps, a Norwegian oil well company discovered the possibility of detecting leaks using accelerometers. Vibrations were recorded at different locations, both on the pump and on the discharge line, along with suction pressure, discharge pressure, and pump speeds for different pump conditions. A 20-kHz sampling frequency was used and 5-second snapshots were taken with intervals of a few minutes. On one occasion, the vibration signature significantly changed during a 15-minute period; the spot was a growing valve leak.

Based on that encouraging experience, the company wanted to include this condition-based maintenance system as a standard feature on all hex pumps, so it developed the system as a standalone module to add to the existing hex pump control system. Slightly simplified, it consists of the following components: accelerometers (one per valve block), a proximity sensor picking up pump speed and phase, a discharge pressure sensor, an embedded monitoring system (an NI CompactRIO system with acquisition modules for powering the accelerometers and acquiring high-frequency data), signal processing software and alarm logics implemented using NI LabVIEW software running on the CompactRIO monitoring system, and an HMI user interface developed in LabVIEW.

The data acquisition and signal processing are briefly described by the following steps: Capture high-rate data (25-kHz sample rate) from all sensors during a short time interval covering at least one pump cycle.

The default sampling frequency of the signals is 25 kHz but the system can handle higher rates if necessary. The bandpass filter is optional but experience shows that it improves contrast and detection sensitivity. Signal strength normalization by the median vibration level makes the detection nearly independent of the inherent ambient vibrations, which increase rapidly with increasing pump speed and discharge pressure. The last requirement — that the detected leaks last for a set time — eliminates erratic alarms caused by debris or large particles that can cause temporary seal malfunction.

Figure 2 shows a diagnosis screen from the hex pump control screen delivered by the leak detection system. It shows a very clear overview of the valve status and a vibration level trend of all valves.

The NI tools for prototyping the system provided an embedded deployment system that can reliably retrofit to existing pumps. In comparison to other leak detection methods based on analyzing discharge pressure, the vibration-based methods are more robust and reliable, especially when it comes to localizing a leak. Studies showed that an alternative method can be applied for shaft-driven piston pumps having either an integrated valve block or split blocks with a high vibration transfer. Leak localization for this kind of pump is mainly based on the phase of the pulsating vibration level. It can be used to localize one dominating leaky valve at a time.

Severity and frequency of equipment failure in midstream operations is often undetectable to operators. Using a new approach with continuous real-time vibration monitoring will detect failure modes and early wear immediately.

Equipment failure causing downtime in downstream operations can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. With continuous real-time vibration monitoring, operators are able to remotely compare readings with working equipment.

Today’s highly competitive market means that companies need to differentiate themselves with an innovative approach to asset and production optimization. The SMARTdiagnostics machine health optimization platform provides monitoring, analysis, and automation capabilities built to work in the toughest environments to deliver the best results.

Not all machine health technology is created equally. Monitoring platforms that output data only a trained engineer can understand are of no use to equipment operators when they need to make critical, split-second decisions. And systems that offer algorithmic decision-making are only as good as the data they’re built on.

Our machine health optimization platform was designed for manufacturers with tough asset challenges that traditional monitoring can’t solve. We’ll help you prevent unplanned downtime and increase productivity, efficiency, and revenue.

A mud pump is a reciprocating piston/plunger device designed to circulate drilling fluid under high pressure down the drill string and back up the annulus.

Mud pumps come in a variety of sizes and configurations, but for the typical petroleum drilling rig, the triplex (three piston/plunger) mud pump is the pump of choice. Duplex mud pumps (two piston/plungers) have generally been replaced by the triplex pump, but are still common in developing countries. A later development is the hex pump with six pistons/plungers.

The normal mud pump consists of two main sub-assemblies—the fluid end and the power end. The fluid end produces the pumping process with valves, pistons, and liners. Because these components are high-wear items, modern pumps are designed to allow for quick replacement.

To reduce severe vibration caused by the pumping process, mud pumps incorporate both suction and discharge pulsation dampeners. These are connected to the inlet and outlet of the fluid end.

The number of mud pumps varies per drilling rig depending on the size of the drilling rig. The larger the rig the more mud pumps that will be needed. The mud pumps are considered vital to the operation of the drilling rig. If the mud pumps fail it affects production and can be very costly to repair due to the downtime in production.

To avoid any failures of the pumps, an online monitoring system was selected to collect and transmit vibration data back to a software system for analysis. This online monitoring and diagnostic system can also be expanded by a series of program modules (MUXs) that are specific to the application:

That’s where real-time pipeline monitoring can help. With continuous monitoring and tracking of essential KPIs, oil and gas companies can immediately respond to potential issues and fix them as they occur, which reduces the likelihood of unplanned shutdowns and subsequent revenue losses.

ENSCO 71 is a Jack-Up drilling rig which was originally constructed at the Hitachi Zosen shipyard in 1982.  The original GE motor controls comprised five 1163 KVA generators and four 1800 ADC SCR units with associated auxiliary transformer feeders and jacking units. The SCRs were assignable to two 1600 HP twin-motor Mud Pumps, a twin motor 2000 HP Drawworks and a 1000 HP Rotary Table. A separate feeder drives a 1110 HP Top Drive. A fifth SCR was added by Hill Graham Controls in 1985 to power a third 1600 HP Mud Pump, which was cabled to the main busbars.

In early 2012, a decision was made to add a fifth 2500 KVA generator and an additional auxiliary transformer, to close-couple these to the main switchboard via a bus tie circuit breaker, and to include a dedicated feeder for the fifth SCR. A sixth SCR was also included in the switchboard extension to provide an alternative drive source for the third Mud Pump, effectively removing this load from the main switchboard. The switchboard extension, including full integration with the existing GE and Hill Graham equipment, was engineered and built by Zeefax.

The Power System Study was completed by gathering data about the existing switchboard arrangement and comparing this to the original, hand written, fault level calculations. The new calculations were performed using software modelling and verified to IEC 61363. The IEC 61363 Short Circuit study represents conditions that may affect typical marine or offshore installations more significantly than land-based systems, including more emphasis on generator and motor decay. This confirmed the original calculations were accurate.

Finally, the study also included calculating the strength and current-carrying capacity of the busbars under normal and fault conditions to establish the correct busbar sizes and bracing.

Optimizing production under dynamic well conditions requires flexible and adaptive electrical submersible pumping (ESP) solutions. ESP pumps from Baker Hughes incorporate innovative hydraulic designs to expand the application range of your ESP systems.

Our flexible pumps have the broadest operating range in the industry to deliver unsurpassed levels of efficiency, reliability, and speed to your production operations. You get customized pumping solutions to improve your operating economics, regardless of your field application.

Why (problem/reason): A contractor putting together a water treatment facility for a large city in Colorado encountered vibration issues with various pumps during commissioning. An independent opinion was required after multiple failed attempts by the OEM to fix the problem.

Findings: The root cause for the elevated vibration in the PEPS pumps was a pump bearing frame and shaft lateral resonant condition within the operating speed range at vane passing frequency. The RAS pumps had the first shaft lateral bending mode excited by vane pass frequency near the upper end of the speed range. The SWAS pumps suffered from excessive flexibility between the bearing frame and the stuffing box leading to a bearing frame natural frequency in resonance, and also piping structural natural frequencies within the running speed range.

Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) pump condition monitoring can be a solution to help understand pump issues and, better yet, reduce operating costs. If the pump is expensive to maintain or replace and is critical to the process, consider adding IIoT monitoring. There are many things that can be monitored on different pump styles. For instance, a progressive cavity pump should never run dry. Positive head and flow should always be on the suction side of the pump. If this type of pump runs dry for even a half a minute, the rotor and stator can be permanently damaged. Adding vibration sensors and flow meters can help diagnose and stop a pump before serious damage occurs. Main bearings, gear boxes and motors can be monitored so increasing vibration can be detected and an e-mail or text can be sent to relevant personnel to diagnose and fix a small problem before it becomes significant and costly.

Immense data can be captured from an integrated frequency drive. Any instrumentation that resides in the area of the pump that provides input to pump performance can be tapped into and monitored from a cloud based portal. Alarms will be displayed on the cloud-based portal but e-mails or text messages can be sent to relevant personnel for any alarm.

Any asset that has digital or analog instrumentation inputs can be monitored. Instrumentation has become much less expensive and easier to install. Some call this instrumentation “lick and stick.” It can be bolted on, use magnets or adhesives. Virtually any asset including pumps can use IIoT monitoring. Some areas or instances where IIoT condition monitoring can help are:

Roxia provided smart pumping solutions for a waste management company EKJH in Finland. The company had a remote unmanned pumping station where the control system was old and out of date. Personnel had to travel to the station several times a week to take readings and make adjustments to pumps and other assets. The smart valve and pump manufacturer provided an updated control system to replace the existing system for half the cost of a new control system. Now the owners of that remote pumping station can sit in offices 80 miles away to make system adjustments and all the readings are real time cloud-based. If there is an alarm, the owners get an e-mail, and they can log in and determine if a site visit is required.

The same wastewater management company contacted the manufacturer last year about an aeration system for its leveling pond. It had a problem with the pond freezing during winter and generally low oxygen content in the water, which resulted in foul odors. The manufacturer recommended that the aeration system should be fully automated and operated under the same platform as the remote pumping station. The goal was to supply the lowest total cost of ownership. Roxia partnered with a company that specializes in surface aerators because the project required compressors and energy efficient oxygen transfer while keeping the pond surface from freezing. Roxia was able to gather all the data from the aeration units and provide an automatically adjusted system that operates according to weather and water conditions, as well as incorporate the remote pumping station. The EKJH waste management company has been pleased with the solution.

Last year, the IIoT provider added vertical tower pressure filter monitoring on three pressure filters also in Finland. These machines are highly automated and have many instruments and inputs to monitor. However, the manufacturer did not add any additional instrumentation to these machines. It began to analyze the data and provide dashboards so the plant could better understand its issues.

Any plant can capture data, but if it does not have an effective way to analyze the data, then it is useless. IIoT monitoring is proving to be an analysis tool that is benefiting many customers.