United Electric Controls announces WirelessHART gas detector pre-release beta programme
United Electric Controls (UEC), a safety, alarm, and shutdown technology producer, has made available beta versions of its Vanguard WirelessHART gas detector.
The new detector, with a five-year battery life, is designed to maximise toxic or explosive gas detection points while eliminating the need for costly and fixed wiring.
UEC is offering free beta trials to gain additional feedback on customer experience and product performance prior to the official product roll-out in early 2017.
“Our new Vanguard gas detector has received approvals from all relevant safety agencies, and we now want to utilise the time we have before officially releasing the product next year to learn as much as we can about how it performs in the field,” said Wil Chin, VP of marketing and business development at UEC.
UEC developed the Vanguard detector in response to the market need for a cost effective way to add multiple gas measurement points.
The cost of adding one new gas measurement point, including the cost and labour of obtaining “hot” work permits, running conduits for wires, and burying them, can exceed $10,000 (€9,600) per device for land-based systems and as much as five times more for offshore applications.
Wireless technology can reduce that cost up to 90% while also making the plant much safer, UEC said.
Vanguard field-interchangeable gas sensor modules detect and record hydrogen sulfide (H2S) or methane (CH4) gas in parts per million (PPM) or percent of lower explosive limits (LELs) respectively, along with network and battery status.
WirelessHART 7.2 technology carries signals to local 128x64 pixel digital displays or other IEC 62591 compatible connections – all of which integrate seamlessly with existing supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) or asset management (AMS) systems.
Potential applications
The Vanguard beta programme will provide companies running operations that generate H2S or CH4 an opportunity to try it out in various settings.
Applications for the detector include wireless remote and local gas detection systems, such as tank farms, oil and gas production facilities, refineries, pipelines, abandoned wells, and waste treatment plants.
Other possibilities include temporary situations in which the cost of setting up a wired solution is completely unfeasible – such as a maintenance turnaround, natural disaster, security breach, or plant expansion – asset management initiatives where trending of emissions over time through the deployment of multiple wireless sensors can initiate the necessary predictive and preventive maintenance, or pollution control monitoring.
