| Field Calibrators are Improving |
| In
many process industry sectors, the safe and efficient handling of
potentially hazardous liquids and gases is an everyday challenge
Examples range from sewage treatment petrochemical fuel
distillation wet gas separation to hydrogen cooled power
generators amongst many others. working in such hazardous
areas places great responsibility upon individuals as the
potential for disaster .
Effective process maintenance schedules are essential ad need to be carefully planned implemented and documented to keep plant systems running efficiently whilst safely achieving maximum levels of productivity production costs are extremely high so inevitably a fast response to any system fault, breakdown or failure is also vital to keep losses to an absolute minimum just a few minutes of plant downtime can cost tens of thousands of pounds HAZARDOUS AREAS The use of electrical equipment such as field calibrators is restricted within the areas unless it has been approved as 'Intrinsically Safe'. Non Inrinsically Safe (IS) equipment reduces the ability for plant technicians to quickly implement maintenance schedules, or even worse, their ability to respond quickly to equipment failure or breakdown Typically they must first report to the plant manager, obtain authorisation documents, locate suitable gas detectors and then sign a permit to work. The user is then accepting a burden of responsibility for continually monitoring the hazardous environment whilst carrying out maintenance or troubleshooting duties within often remote or difficult site conditions. Dependening on the choice of field calibrator for a particular task, delays and errors in implementing and documenting test activities can be avoided or introduced. Safe Calibrators A calibrator is required to directly measure and/or simulate parameters such as pressure, temperature and frequency in order to find a fault with instruments or associated control loops under emergency include sensors, switches, gauges, transmitters there mocouples and RTD's Calibrators are also used for minimal routine preventative checks and monitoring instrument or system performance. Despite the evolution of non IS field calibrators relatively few IS approved products exist. However, intelligent and fully self-contained IS field calibrators are available. They are accurate, simple to use and a choice of specifications can be supplied according to specific user requirements. The precise choice of IS calibrator will ensure that the most cost effective and convenient solution is applied for addressing a task or range of tasks within specific user applications. This may be a smart 4-20 mA loop tester
a combined pressure/electrical calibrator and troubleshooter or even a
powerful multi-function documenting process calibrator with PC based
management software and complete test routines can be preloaded. |