February 21, 2006 -- At Achema 2006, Parker Instrumentation will highlight its growing range of innovative modules that bring new efficiencies to process analysis system builders. State of the art products include the company's SP76-compliant surface-mounting substrate and components for industrial analysers, a modular valve system for automated stream switching in gas and liquid analysis applications, and a turnkey solution for venting samples from process analysers into a plant's flare disposal or return system.
Parker Instrumentation will also launch a radical new type of instrument manifold system, one that is expected to set a new standard for connecting instruments to process lines. Developed over more than two years, and with considerable input from large-scale users, Parker believes it is the most significant development in instrumentation manifolds for many years.
Advancing solutions for process sampling
Parker Instrumentation's modular SP76-compliant substrate - IntraFlow - delivers a leap forward for process analytical and laboratory instrumentation flow control systems. At Achema, Parker will highlight the new ability to provide users with complete assembled solutions including instruments and heaters from a single purchase order - as a result of teaming agreements with Honeywell and Intertec. IntraFlow surface-mounting fittings dramatically reduce the amount of space required, minimising the volume of sample flow paths, and speeding construction and reducing cost of ownership. Substrate fittings plug together in seconds using novel slip-fit connectors. No welding is required to build a system. The 1.5 inch (38.1 mm) footprint modules simply screw onto a 'pegboard' backplane that provides the connection force and rigidity for the finished flow control assembly, and may be disassembled rapidly for maintenance or re-use. Finished systems occupy typically around 25% of the space of a conventionally plumbed flow control system. A major advantage of Parker's new substrate is its intrinsic support for three-way flow paths. Unlike the linear substrates in common use for semiconductor 'gas stick' delivery systems, IntraFlow maintains flow paths on a single plane - regardless of direction. No manifolds on additional substrate layers are needed to implement the more sophisticated functionality required by sample systems. This approach allows flow control substrates to be constructed with extremely low profiles of less than 3/4 inch (20 mm) - including the pegboard.
Honeywell instruments available as part of a process sampling and analytical solution include pressure, temperature and flow transducers - all of which may be connected to the plant's local area network. The agreement with Intertec allows Parker to provide systems with an integral Varitherm-Hi heater with smart temperature control.
"It's not uncommon for instrument technicians to spend hours a day riding a bike around the plant to make sure that sample systems are working," says Steve Doe, analytical market manager for Parker Instrumentation. "The Parker-Honeywell teaming arrangement gives plant operators the ability to easily monitor and manage their process sample systems which, according to industry experts, still account for around three quarters of all process analyser downtime."
Stream switch enhances automated sampling
Parker Instrumentation's valve system for automated stream switching in gas and liquid analysis applications - R-max - employs surface-mounting techniques to dramatically reduce the size of control systems for process analysers and gas chromatographs. Purpose-designed for automated applications, the pneumatically-operated R-max brings new levels of reliability and integrity to this application, through the use of true three-way double-block-and-bleed valve modules that eliminate any possibility of cross contamination of fluid streams, combined with needle valves offering operating lifetimes in excess of a million cycles. R-max operates over a vacuum to 500 PSIG/34 bar pressure range, and may be actuated using a low air pressure supply of 40 PSIG/3 bar. Systems are based on three basic components: valve modules, substrates housing the stream switching channels, and a venting unit. These interconnect using just two screws, allowing the number of streams to be extended without breaking the connections throughout the entire substrate. The surface mounting approach means that stream switches are much smaller than systems built using standard valves and tubing - by up to as much as 90%.
Innovative process analyser venting system
Parker Instrumentation's latest value-added module for process analysis, Vent Master, will feature at Achema. Providing a turnkey solution for venting samples from process analysers into a plant's flare disposal or return system, the product creates a constant pressure environment in the vent header to keep chemical/petrochemical process analysers operating at their maximum accuracy. The system eliminates the need to vent directly to atmosphere, and resolves analyser accuracy issues associated with alternative disposal techniques. Vent Master is highly compact, fitting easily into the smallest of field shelters, and is a completely mechanical solution with minimal moving parts - requiring no regular maintenance.
More information:
Parker Instrumentation
Riverside Road, Barnstaple EX31 1NP, UK
Tel: +44 (0)1271 313131; ipd@parker.com
Parker Instrumentation - a division of Parker Hannifin - provides tube fittings, valves, double-block-and-bleed valves, manifolds and enclosures for process and plant instrumentation in sectors including oil and gas, chemical/petrochemical, alternate fuels, pulp and paper, and analytical/high purity. For more information, visit www.parker.com/ipd. With annual sales exceeding $7 billion, Parker Hannifin is the world's leading diversified manufacturer of motion and control technologies and systems, providing precision-engineered solutions for a wide variety of commercial, mobile, industrial and aerospace markets. The company employs more than 48,000 people in 46 countries around the world. Parker has increased its annual dividends paid to shareholders for 48 consecutive years, among the top five longest-running dividend-increase records in the S&P 500 index. Visit www.parker.com, or its investor information site at www.phstock.com, for more information.
