Ideally, pumps in the process industry run flawless and without unforeseen failures. Unfortunately, practice shows a different picture. Operators suffer high costs when important process pumps come to a standstill due to mechanical seal or bearing damage. Often the loss of revenue due to the production downtime far exceeds the repair costs. The best course for operators would be if they pursue a demand-oriented maintenance strategy i.e., repair their systems precisely when needed. That means on the one hand, the bearing and mechanical seal show wear, but the function of the system is not yet impaired and, on the other hand, the risk of a sudden failure is still relatively low.
For cost reasons, smaller, inexpensive pumps were often not taken into account regarding condition monitoring by sensor technology. However, these small pumps are also capable of bringing a process to a standstill. BestSens wants to use this market potential and delivers a cost-effective OEM solution for intelligent pumps with the DOT platform. The platform consists small, cost-effective multi-sensor nodes – the DOTs -- that are mounted directly on the pump's bearing carrier, for example.
One-cable solution
With PoE (Power over Ethernet), the measuring nodes supply themselves with energy via the data line. The operator gets a direct insight into the status of his pumps on his smartphone by simply connecting to the DOT app. The status data flows into existing SCADA and cloud systems via the standardised OPC UA and MQTT communication protocols. BestSens will start market entry with selected OEMs in mid-2023 with the vibDOT and in autumn with the sealDOT. The vibDOT sensor node measures vibrations in 3 axes + temperature at the bearing. The sealDOT node additionally monitors the condition of the mechanical seal with patented BestSens SAW technology and temperature at the mechanical seal.
