Product category:
Condition monitoring and vibration analysis
News Release from: SPECIAL REPORT by the Editor | Subject: Perpetuum 'mouse-trap'
Edited by the Processingtalk Editorial
Team on 13 July 2007
A future machinery monitoring sensor
power source
Perpetuum, the developers of a unique energy harvesting technology product, that replaces the batteries in a truly wireless condition monitoring sensor, are about to see order intake boom
When you've developed the best new idea for that "industrial mouse-trap", and the World process industry suppliers have beaten a path to your door, what happens next? This is the situation facing Perpetuum, a start-up company created by Southampton University and some venture capital groups to commercialise this micro-generator technology After 2 years of developments and trials, Perpetuum has a commercial product, and is starting production
This article was originally published on Processingtalk on 3 Aug 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
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One of the first products on offer, powered by a Perpetuum Microgenerator, is a vibration measurement system from Pruftechnik: this uses their condition monitoring sensors and analysis techniques, feeding an 802.15.4a wireless transmission link from Nanotron.
The whole thing is truly wireless and sealed, all powered by a Perpetuum microgenerator.
The asset management and condition monitoring market, primarily using vibration measurement techniques, is seen as the first major commercial application area for the Perpetuum vibration energy harvesting microgenerators, but Perpetuum are only a 'component supplier', supplying just one vital element of the total sales package.
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However, all the technology and business indicators are coming together to make this a real market opportunity:.
1) Industrial wireless systems and communications systems are just taking off - with sensor transmitter modules and circuits going into production.
2) Asset management and condition monitoring using vibration techniques is established, and with existing average plants spending around 7% of replacement value on regular maintenance activity, the accountants are now looking sideways at their "Best-in-class" competitors who have reduced this to 2-3% using condition monitoring.
3) A reported ten million condition monitoring points around industrial plants are being read once a month, in a visit from a plant maintenance engineer: a wireless, continuous monitoring/alarm system is the sought after answer - but it must be easy to install, and not cost much!.
4) "Batteries are getting better!" - This is said so often, but there is no real proof yet! Batteries still have an unpredictable life span.
5) Some plant managers, typically on petrochemical refineries, do not like battery powered equipment, and would not accept batteries on their site into zoned hazardous areas, because of the hazard, and also because of the cost and complexity of battery replacement procedures.
So: the stage is set for a wireless, clamp-on sensor which monitors the vibration of rotating equipment to indicate when maintenance problems are arising, as long as it is quick and easy to fit, requiring no additional plant wiring.
The ideal unit should talk via wireless mesh systems straight back into the plant wide maintenance control system, whether this is operated by plant engineers, or is subcontracted to a maintenance monitoring and repair service provider.
The Perpetuum microgenerator has entered the market just at the right point, and provides a far more acceptable power source to replace the potentially unreliable battery power.
CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT.
The concept developed from research work at Southampton University Electronics Department.
After investigating piezo-electric energy harvesting, their approach concentrated on resonant vibrational techniques, using the electromagnetic interaction between a magnet, which moves inside a coil.
The first production units are externally about 50mm diameter cylinders, 50mm long, mounted onto the motor or machinery casing either magnetically, or by being screwed onto a stud.
Transmitter and sensor electronics can be incorporated into an extension to this body, or can be wired in separately.
Positioning and installation on site is simple - it takes about 10 seconds.
ATEX intrinsically safe design and approval, at the low power levels involved, is readily achievable.
The system is typically tuned to generate most efficiently at 95-105Hz, for equipment driven using 50Hz supplies.
A different model is produced for use on 60Hz supplies in North America - and is even required for some North Sea offshore installations, as some trial installations by Perpetuum found out! The current production unit develops around 700microWatts of power from a pump vibrational acceleration level of 20-25 milliG.
How do you relate this to pumps on your plant? Well site measurements have shown that even a smooth running pump will generate 250 microWatts typically, and a survey of typical water industry condition monitoring points showed that 90% of them would generate this amount of power, and generally produced more.
A test unit supplied to an interested oil refinery showed a typical microgenerator output of 645 microWatts (or more) everywhere - even from bare plant pipe-work! (This could be a measurement of the classic hum of active industry) So what can a condition monitoring sensor and wireless combination do, using this 250microWatts? Even with currently available technology (designed for battery use), 200microWatts is sufficient for a vibration measurement, analysis and radio transmission of the resulting data every 100 seconds! Compare that to the current data rate for access to existing condition monitoring points of once every month!.
PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE.
Perpetuum have had excellent results from trial installations - one, at the YWA Esholt STW, was reported on Processingtalk last month (http://www.processingtalk.com/news/peu/peu103.html), and the first Perpetuum powered vibration monitoring units are now commercially available from Pruftechnik (http://www.processingtalk.com/news/pft/pft000.html).
These use low energy consumption CHIRP wireless technology from Nanotron, part of the IEEE 802.15.4a standard, working in the license-free ISM band at 2.4 GHz (http://www.processingtalk.com/news/not/not000.html).
This could be the first of many new styles of condition monitoring sensor system developments that will use the benefits of Perpetuum microgenerator technology.
Perpetuum is recently ISO2001 qualified, and based in the Southampton University Science Park at Chilworth, where MD Roy Freeland has assembled a team of condition monitoring, RF and micro-electronics engineers, to spearhead the support Perpetuum can offer to the procession of the World's condition monitoring companies that are beating the path to his door.
This is just one of the first product areas that will benefit from Perpetuum microgenerators: the technology development here is moving fast, and already microgenerators to suit MEMS sensors are on the drawing board.
Constantly approached by OEMs seeking microgenerators for their applications, there is a queue for Perpetuum attention - the biggest challenge is to choose the right product that will accelerate into profitable production in the shortest timescale (Production of the first models has indeed already started).
With no shortage of development funding and market interest, Roy Freeland finds the challenges of running such a start-up company totally different to his previous roles.
Roy Freeland comments: "I have run much larger and more complex businesses but nothing before has been such an exciting challenge, or been so much fun".
For the process industry engineer, the interesting aspect of the Perpetuum products is that they are likely to become known as the ubiquitous energy harvesting component behind most of the next generation of the major suppliers product brands.
Like the mesh wireless network components, Perpetuum will be one of the main enabling components in the technologically advanced wireless instrumentation shortly to be introduced for plant machinery measurement and monitoring - not just condition monitoring using vibration, but temperature, pressure and flow are all possible.
For all the Perpetuum technology and application stories on Processingtalk, see http://www.processingtalk.com/news/peu/peu000.html or consult the Perpetuum website on http://www.perpetuum.co.uk.
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