Introduction
The NP4000 range of instrumentation is gaining ever increasing
popularity in a wide range of industries. In order to demonstrate how the
equipment is deployed and used, a series of applications notes have been
prepared and are shown below:
Plant Monitoring
Offshore Structural Monitoring
Smart
Monitoring Applications
Mooring Advisory &
Control
System
Infra-red Research &
Instrumentation
University Engineering Teaching
Package
Multi-user Demonstration
Engine Noise Identification
Coal Power Station
Nuclear Power Station
(Select the main heading to see application web page)
The following example demonstrates the use the NP4000
instrumentation has been applied to in the power generation industries. The
equipment is gaining popularity due to its simple installation and flexibility
to change to meet operational demands. The automatic configuration system
enables all users to be easily updated as to configuration changes at the touch
of a button. No longer do complex configuration routines have to be maintained
and updated.
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Offshore monitoring projects has always been a difficult to
undertake due to the complex operations which have to be carried out. Projects
often disrupt key personnel from their general operational duties causing
delays in the general platform operations. A major problem has always been that
a widely distributed set of sensors is required to monitor structural movement,
the sensors may include strain gauges situated on legs, hull accelerometers
mounted at platform extremities and wave gauges deployed on remote access gang
ways outside the wave splash zones. Once the sensors are deployed, a large
amount of cabling has often to be fitted into already package wiring conduits
through to a control station. Signals from strain gauges etc. are small in
comparison to the general platform control system signals and so can be
corrupted by background noise caused by pick-up in the wiring. Once the
equipment has been set-up it is often left to rig personnel to maintain.
Offshore staff generally do not have the expertise and time to carry out this
task effectively. A level of redundancy is often required. If the monitoring
system fails then important data can be lost. What is required is a general
purpose, reliable easy to install and operate instrument system that does not
require expensive applications software to give results. In order to provide
these facilities the NP4000 instrumentation has been developed. To see how easy
it is to install and use, activate the structural monitoring web page by
selecting the arrow below:
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The Keynes Controls mooring advisory system provides a
simple solution to mooring control projects. The advisory system can be used to
examine a mooring systems response to varying control parameters such as line
deployments, mooring line failures etc. The software can be used as an advisory
tool in that an operator can assign platform movements and the software will
advise on line payouts to move the structure to the new location. Line tensions
are predicted to determine if mooring failure would occur during a movement
operation. The software can be used as a real time control system. Information
can be integrated from a widely distributed set of sensors using the NP4000
range of instrumentation. Line tensions and position information can be
included in the mooring system analysis so that real time displays can
accurately show the response of the structure and mooring system. For further
information see advisory system web page. Press the side arrow
immediately below this text.
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The NP4000 instrumentation is used in smart monitoring
applications due to its simple installation and operation. Data can be sampled
at different rates and processed independently for wide ranging applications.
Information can be easily integrated and processed by different applications
software simultaneously. The main benefits of using the NP4000 instrumentation
are its simple installation and configuration. Smart monitoring applications
can be created to examine system data for important but in-frequent phenomena
and report that event have occurred to remote interest parties. The NP4000
instrumentation can be easily interrogated to communications and organisation
wide networks to provide remote access to the real time data.
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The high dynamic range and sample rate has made the
NP4000 a favored acquisition system for Infra-red analysis projects. Since IR
signal levels are generally very small it is important the S/N ratio of any
detector signal be as high as possible. The high dynamic range of the 24bit
NP4000 system ensures that digitization can be carried out with the minimum
amount of amplification. The easy integration of additional units has enabled
researches to combine large numbers of sensors and additional equipment into
single experimental units. All data derived from NP4000 units can be accurately
time stamped and recorded no matter where on a network the equipment is
located.
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The NP4000 instrumentation is in use with University
engineering and computer departments. Equipment is generally attached to
mechanical test bed structures, data gathered from the structures under test is
fed directly onto a network. As the instrumentation supports multi-user,
multi-unit operations as standard, the results from the logging operations can
be displayed locally i.e. to a PC in the engineering lab and directly to
students situated in labs many miles from the source of the information.
Students can practise developing real time applications with genuine test data.
The help facility supplied with the driver software provides all the details
necessary to enable software development for a number of languages which
include C, Delphi, Visual Basic etc. and spreadsheet applications such as
Microsoft Excel, Lotus Notes.
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In order to demonstrate the simplicity of operation and
versatility of the NP4000 range of instrumentation, the following application
shows a typical system installation. The system layout shows how information
can be gathered from a distributed acquisition system and the results processed
my several users simultaneously but independently of each other.
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