Yokogawa Electric Corporation has announced the release of two new product series, the GX panel-mounted paperless recorders and the GP portable paperless recorders. These are components of SMARTDAC+™, a newly developed next-generation data acquisition and control system with excellent operability and expandability. The GX20 will be released on October 31, and this will be followed by the GX10, GP20, and GP10 in late January.

Development Background:

Recorders are used on production lines and in R&D units in a variety of industries to acquire, display, and record data such as temperature, voltage, current, flow rate, and pressure. Yokogawa has long been one of the world’s leading recorder vendors. Two major trends in the recorder market are a shift from paper to digital recording systems and the proliferation of computer networks, allowing all the data stored in recording devices to be centrally managed and monitored, no matter where they may be located.

With the recent significant improvements in the user interfaces of tablets, smartphones, and other mobile terminals, users have been calling for similar enhancements to be made with recorders and other industrial instruments to improve ease of use. There is also a need for I/O modules that will enable the flexible configuration of recorders for different applications, and a need to improve network connectivity.

The GX series panel-mounted paperless recorders and GP series portable paperless recorders for Yokogawa's SMARTDAC+ data acquisition and control system meet all these needs with features such as an easy to use operator interface like those found in the latest handheld terminals, flexible configuration, and excellent system expandability. The GX and GP series devices are the first products to be released for the SMARTDAC+ system.

Product Features:

• Easy and intuitive navigation
• System configuration with high flexibility and expandability
• Open network

For further details click Yokogawa Recorders

The swift performance capability of the Rotork Type K vane type damper drive has provided the successful retrofit solution to a critical application involving the safe and efficient operation of balanced-draft power generation boilers.

Inlet draft (ID) fan inlet dampers at power stations regulate the fan-induced pressure and airflow supply to balanced-draft power generation boilers. These boilers require a consistent internal operating pressure for efficient and safe combustion. Boiler pressure fluctuations create combustion problems that can, in extreme conditions, lead to catastrophic failure and structural damage. The maintenance of consistent operating pressure relies entirely on the swift operation of the ID fan inlet dampers.

At the three-unit 2735MW Florida Power & Light Manatee Power Station at Parrish, Florida, the ID fan inlet dampers demand full 90 degree damper movement at full torque load in three seconds or less in order to safeguard the operation of the boilers.

In a recent outage at the station it was necessary to replace the ID fan inlet damper drives on Units 1 and 2, which were over thirty years old and incompatible with the HART protocol of the station’s new Distributed Control System. In addition the manual overrides on the drives had proved to be unreliable.

The equipment selected to replace the obsolete equipment was Type K ‘PM Series’ pedestal mounted TK-6 damper drives, delivering a torque of 5000 lbs-ft at a tested time of less than three seconds for a full 90 degree stroke. Operated by vane-type direct drive pneumatic actuators, these units offer a smoother and faster acting performance than any alternative design.

Type K provided a ‘drop-in-place’ retrofit installation, matching the dimensions of the existing damper drive footprint on all eight of the replacement installations in Units 1 and 2. Integrated air volume boosters were fitted to obtain the required rotation speed and the control interface was provided by smart positioners.

To meet machine builders’ needs for flexible micro programmable logic controllers (PLCs) that optimize stand-alone machine performance and cost, Rockwell Automation announces the new Allen-Bradley Micro850 and enhanced Micro830 PLCs. Both micro PLCs feature embedded motion capabilities for up to three axes of motion, allowing them to support a wide range of applications.

“To be profitable, machine builders around the globe demand world-class micro PLCs,” said Co Gia Nguyen, vice president and general manager, Rockwell Automation Asia Pacific Business Center. “But these controllers must meet machine builders’ requirements for economical, just-enough control, while providing additional options and features that enable machine builders to differentiate their machines from the competition. The new Micro850 and enhanced Micro830 controllers balance those needs and help machine builders compete more profitably.”

The Micro850 micro PLC is equipped with the same form factor, plug-in support, instruction/data size and motion capabilities as the 24-pt and 48-pt Micro830 controllers, but with the added capabilities of Ethernet and expansion I/O. The Micro850 controller specifically targets the needs of OEMs and excels at stand-alone machine applications.

The Micro850 controller has an embedded Ethernet port for higher performance connectivity to human-machine interfaces (HMIs). The EtherNet/IP protocol with CIP Symbolic support is used for simplified Allen-Bradley PanelView Component HMI connectivity. Tags created while configuring the HMI screens can easily reference the variable names in the Allen-Bradley Micro800 program.

I/O flexibility in the Micro850 PLC is one of the keys to successfully minimizing the cost of a machine. With support for up to five plug-ins, OEMs can customize the functionality of the controller with additional I/O, special functions, and serial ports without increasing the size of the controller. If more I/O or higher-performance analog I/O is required, the Micro850 controller supports up to four 2085 expansion I/O modules, including high-density digital I/O and high-accuracy analog I/O, for a total of 132 digital I/O points.

For details on these products click 'Micro850 and Enhanced Micro830'

Brooks Instrument continues to innovate instrumentation for the fuel cell industry and will showcase its SLA 5800 and GF 40/80 Series thermal mass flow controllers at the 2012 Fuel Cell Seminar & Exposition. Brooks will also exhibit its direct liquid injection (DLI) vaporizers from November 5-8, booth 211 at the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Conn.

Brooks SLA5800 Series offers unparalleled flexibility and performance to the fuel cell industry. These mass flow controllers provide super-high flow control accuracy for excellent experiment control, as well as ultra-low drift, which ensures data is accurate and repeatable. Their fast response time permits accurate simulation of rapidly changing process conditions. In addition, their broad turndown reduces the number of MFCs required to cover flow ranges and permits simpler piping for fuel cell test stands. The SLA5800 Series also ensures a stable process even under changing conditions.

Brooks will also feature its DLI vaporizers, which provide unique atomization and heat exchanger technologies for testing fuel cell membranes. The DLI vaporizer can accept multiple inlets and will generate perfectly mixed vapors. Brooks offers several heat exchanger designs to accommodate a wide range of liquid properties: extremely low vapor pressures, very low flow rates and very high flow rates.