Gas Pressure Monitoring System with HART solutions

LOS ANGELES - Oct. 19, 2015 - PRLog -- Natural gas has proven to be the most affordable energy option for home heating. It also offers lower greenhouse gas emissions and is considered to be a cleaner source of energy compared with other energy sources for residential and commercial use. However, the transportation of natural gas has been a big challenge for most gas providers. It requires an extensive and elaborate transportation system to carry the natural gas from the production wells to its consumption regions. From the point of production to the point of use, it might take thousands of miles.

Different types of pipelines are used for the long distance transportation of natural gas. For example, the gathering system might require low pressure pipelines to take the gas from the production wells to the processing factories, whereas when transporting natural gas from the process factory to the consumption areas, it usually requires high pressure in the pipeline to reduce the volume of the natural gas being transported.

Therefore, the biggest challenge facing our customer, a gas provider company, is how to strictly control the gas pressures in the transportation pipelines. Our customer is going to build many gas stations on the way to decompress natural gas being transported. They require a system that can help them detect the gas pressures in the pipelines at every gas station. If the actual gas pressure in the pipelines is above or below the preset level, the system should be able to notify the related personnel to prevent potential disasters.

Based on the information our customer provided, we came up with a solution that allows our customers to easily monitor the gas pressures in all pipelines in their control center.

The gas company uses HART gas pressure sensors for accurate measurement and easy maintenance. HART is a communication protocol that helps with data communication between traditional industrial systems and smart devices.  HART, standing for Highway Addressable Remote Transducer, uses the Bell 202 Frequency Shift Keying (FSK) standard to superimpose digital communication signals on the 4-20 mA loop current.  It has now become one of the largest communication protocols with more than 30 million HART devices worldwide.

We suggest the customer use our XPAC-8000 (http://www.icpdas-usa.com/x_pac_windows_xp_embedded_pac.h...) programmable automation controller that runs Indusoft SCADA software, to implement the logic controls and I-87H17W (http://www.icpdas-usa.com/i_87h17w.html?r=press), an 8-channel HART current input module to gather the information from the HART sensors.  XPAC-8000 is a new Windows CE 6.0 based controller with a wide variety of communication interface, including VGA port, Modbus TCP, Modbus RTU, RS-232, RS-485, etc.  In this case, it can be used to connect with the Indusoft (http://www.icpdas-usa.com/scada_software.html?r=press) SCADA software to send the data back to the control center and users can easily monitor the pressure levels at different gas stations in real time. Indusoft SCADA software also allows users to view historical trends recorded and generate reports.  I-87H17W (http://www.icpdas-usa.com/i_87h17w.html?r=press)is a HART analog input module that can measure 4-20mA current and act as a HART master, allowing communication with HART field devices like the manometers that measures the pressure in the gas pipeline. Its user-friendly design allows users to measure current without any external resistor.  An API library is also provided for users to develop their own programs in VC, VB , C# or VB.Net environment.

An alternative solution would be using our HRT-711 (http://www.icpdas-usa.com/hrt_711.html) Modbus TCP to HART gateway, which allows customers to convert the pressure data collected by the HART sensors into data that can be read by the host PC’s via Ethernet. The HRT-711 (http://www.icpdas-usa.com/hrt_711.html) Modbus TCP to HART gateway is specially designed for the master device of HART protocol. It enables Modbus TCP master device to access the HART slave devices like transmitters, actuators, current output devices and so on. In addition, we also provide the utility software for users to easily configure the HRT-711. Being able to communicate over Ethernet and RS-232, the HRT-711 Modbus TCP to HART gateway can be easily integrated with your SCADA system and other I/O devices.

Our solution has helped the customer optimize their operational costs and system reliability. We helped the customer install these systems at over 10 gas stations they serve and now they are running smoothly.

“The HART solution saved us a lot of work and money so now our engineers don’t need to manually measure the gas pressure value at each gas station”, said the project manager J.L. at the gas company. “Now we can simply sit in the office and watch the real time trends. We get alarms notification whenever there’s an irregular pressure detected. We got everything covered by the system.”  They can monitor the data all the time and record for analysis.

This cost-effective HART solution can be applied to other industries like remotely monitoring water tank levels, temperatures and flow meters as long as there are HART devices in the system.

ICP DAS USA is a provider of Industrial Data Communication, Automation Control and Test and Measurement products.  We specialize in PLC hardware, Ethernet controllers, distributed I/O modules, Industrial Ethernet Switches and protocol converters.  We provide programming services, training classes and free technical support.

For more information, please visit: www.icpdas-usa.com