Cost-effective, compact monitor protects small gas turbines

When gas turbine powered generator package manufacturer Centrax needed protection monitors to replace other obsolete, failed or unreliable products in the field, it turned to Sensonics and the cost-effective, compact DN26 G3.

Continuous protection and monitoring of smaller critical rotating plant and equipment such as power generators, pumps, motors, fans and centrifuges has become increasingly important in many industrial applications. In today’s highly competitive and energy cost-conscious environment, reducing unscheduled downtime is essential, but how do you achieve this effectively and affordably? Plant operators looking to monitor this type of rotating plant may understandably assume that sophisticated monitoring and protection systems are expensive and therefore difficult to justify for smaller operating systems.

This is one of the key reasons why condition monitoring specialist Sensonics developed the DN26 G3 protection monitor to provide effective and affordable protection for small to medium industrial machinery.

The Centrax gas turbine packages are acknowledged as being complete power generation solutions, from design, and engineering to assembly and maintenance. Using core engines from Siemens Energy, these generator sets range in power output from 3MW to 15MW to provide efficient and reliable energy supply. These are mainly for combined heat and power packages, but also for base load, simple cycle and standby applications.

In addition the unit offers a dedicated speed monitor channel which can also be utilised as a phase reference for further harmonic analysis of the vibration signals. The sensor interface is programmable to accept IEPE type accelerometers / velometers, proximity probes (API 670 standard), and active / passive speed probes while the sensor signals are available via a buffered interface to provide further detailed analysis if required.

Three alarm relays are available as standard (expandable to up to seven relays via a digital interface), one dedicated to indicate module and sensor integrity. The other two relays are fully programmable across the alarm criteria selected and all three input channels measured values are available via a 4-20mA interface.

The unit is available with Ethernet communications as standard, permitting configuration either locally or remotely through the in-built webserver and offering Modbus over TCPIP for connecting measured data to other plant wide systems.