Wireless Sensor Network System for Conditional Monitoring of Oil Refinery Equipments of Present Generation

Conditional monitoring is a common practice carried out to assess and predict the conditions of equipments of oilrefineries like Piping, Pressure Vessels, Valves, Connectors and so on. Periodical monitoring gives more information about critical sites and it is important that the inspection department has to access the past history of the equipment to accomplish a proper inspection at those critical sites. Wireless sensor network systems are in use to provide the present and previous information of the above referred equipments online and here in this paper similar methodology is rehearsed to monitor equipments of local oilrefineries. The wireless network system extracts the information about the equipment’s recent condition through a method by name electrical analogy. A wireless transmitter/receiver transmits it to the control room via micro controller to control the transmission and processor to manage the information. The information is then processed for automated interpretation performed in the control room. In this paper the possibility of transmission of equipment condition information through wireless signal transmission and automated interpretation are discussed in brief for the benefit of the readers. The authors have also discussed about the control system adopted for the wireless transmission and the problems that are faced during the signal transmission. In brief the wireless sensor network system based conditional monitoring is expected to provide an effective, efficient and cost-effective assessment and mechanism for the refineries and plant equipments, whereby life-cycle costs and operators risk may be minimized.