Radar
Level Devices will Experience
Double
Digit Growth
Even as the other level measurement technologies are labouring to clock
single digit growth rates, the worldwide market for radar level devices
is expected to grow at an impressive Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR)
of 10.3 per cent over the next five years. In addition to being highly
accurate and reliable, radar level devices have several other advantages
over other contact as well as non-contact level measurement technologies.
US
Blackout:
Don’t Believe Promises Made in the Dark
Now blamed for last blackout, the electric power transmission system
is owned, operated, and regulated by a complex quilt of overlapping
private enterprises, state, and Federal agencies.
For several years, the US government has been trying to restructure
this mass towards one that is more reliant on market forces. The incident
last week, however significant, will not speed up this long process,
which continues to restrict incentives for investment in new electric
power transmission resources.
Teams of investigators are at work correlating hundreds of logs in order
to determine which events during the afternoon of August 14 precipitated
the Great Blackout of 2003. While they will search for violations of
system operating procedures and for the exact sequence of equipment
failures, a long-term view of the event would extend the analysis back
several years.
IEEE
1588 Cuts Integration Costs on Production Lines
The IEEE 1588 “Standard for a Pre-cision Clock Synchronization
Protocol for Networked Measurement and Control Systems” is a viable
foundation for standardising the way modular machinery is interconnected.
Network services available with the IEEE 1588 standard will enable rapid
integration of modular machinery that will operate in precise synchronisation.
Robotic production lines are excellent automation candidates for utilising
the capabilities of IEEE 1588 because they are widely used in continuous
flow operations for discrete products and perform tasks while work in
process are still in motion.
Benefits of
High-End Pressure Transmitters
Pressure
transmitter performance specifications continue to improve. Attributes
such as accuracy, rangeability, long-term drift, and over-range protection
keep getting better, particularly in the newer high-end transmitters.
Suppliers of this new breed of best-in-class device are claiming improved
process control and low total cost of ownership (TOC). One must read
the fine print to determine whether the specifications in bold print
on the front of the data sheet are sustainable throughout the entire
measuring range. Individual users must determine if the improved performance
of these transmitters justifies their premium price.
HART
Foundation Teams with SlickEdit
The
HART Communication Foun- dation will use the Visual SlickEdit code editor
as the basis of the Foundation’s new Device Description Integrated
Development Environment (DD-IDE) used by the consortium’s member
companies.
The new DD-IDE will provide configuration templates for the 12 million
plus HART-compatible process plant instrumentation devices in use worldwide
and more than 70 per cent of the intelligent process instrumentation
devices being sold each year.
Visual SlickEdit’s features, combined with its multi-platform,
multi-language support, will enable HCF members to increase productivity
while reducing costs. Visual SlickEdit provides the same look and feel
across Windows, LINUX, and UNIX platforms.
New Ultrasonic Gas Flow Meter
SICK Maihak
has released a new multi-path transit time meter, which has a very compact
format. The meter is compatible with other measuring technologies. For
example, it has the same footprint as turbine meters.
Complete integration of all sensors and cabling makes it as robust and
easy to use as mechanical meters and it has all the advantages of modern
non-intrusive meters, such as high turndown, self-diagnostics and fieldbus
interfaces.
....CONTD
