WIKA builds own full-size instrument test processing unit for process industry

WIKA USA has announced it has built its own full-size test process unit, complete with a reactor and gas-fired furnace, to test measuring instruments under specific conditions and configurations.

The goal was to create a laboratory tests that can duplicate real-life conditions and testing in active processes.

In controlled environments, WIKA can carefully and methodically test its instrumentation used for temperature, pressure, flow, level, and force measurement. In some cases, the company commissions third-party institutes to validate our results.

For temperature instruments used in process plants, the ideal is to test in an active unit, but the drawbacks are time, cost, and practicality, the company explains. Refineries and petrochemical plants need to keep operating to remain profitable, and shutdowns should be limited to just maintenance and repairs.

Tests do take place during these scheduled shutdowns; indeed, some instrument testing begins during a turnaround (TA) and are left running until the next one, it adds. The problem is that these specific conditions are fixed for literally the long run, as TA cycles often last four or more years.

In addition, a test may require actions that would be unacceptable in an actual situation. For example, peened thermocouples are hammered into small holes drilled into furnace tube walls. This process is fine in a laboratory setting but doing so in an active process unit would weaken the tube wall and create potential failure points.

To properly test WIKA’s portfolio of thermocouples and other measurement instruments, the company has created a solution that is said to combine the best of both worlds: an actual process unit that its engineers could start, stop, and manipulate as needed — all without having to inconvenience anyone in the process industry, it says.

Read more about WIKA’s Design Center and Testing Facility