API670 Machinery Protection Systems

[fakewalrus]

I am curious if NI (or NI product users) have considered the requirements of the American Petroleum Institute Specification API670 (Machinery Protection Systems) as they may apply to NI hardware / software products.

e.g. is it possible to assemble and configure an NI system that would be deemed "API 670 compliant" or close to it, i.e. competitive with Bentley Nevada 3500 (if not, what specific paragraphs of API 670 are problematic?)

[tolltroll]

Hi fakewalrus,

After taking a look through our website, I wasn't able to find much documentation on this standard. Do you already have some NI hardware or software that you have specific concerns about? If so, what are they?

Nick

Applications Engineer

[fakewalrus]

Yeah I was surprised to find absolutely no mention of this spec in the forums.  The spec is so common that I would have thought even there may be a sort of "boiler plate" comment and exception document, perhaps for different product families.

Here is the basic question I am pondering....

One division of our company has applied CRIO 9025 to do aftermarket recip engine and compressor monitoring.  CRIO does not do any control and it does not do any protective functions....these are by other systems that run in parallel.  But my feeling is that the CRIO 9025 has plenty enough computational "horsepower"  to do all of the control and monitoring functions that are typical of industrial machinery, such that those other systems might be avoided for new equipment and we could do the whole of machinery control and monitoring just with CRIO.  Perhaps with the FPGAs it may even be more reliable than the PLC systems that are currently applied.  So the question is whether some requirements enshrined in the "go-to" industry specification on the topic (API 670) currently preclude this possibility or if it is just industry inertia why we are not there already.  Note that API 670 covers an array of applications, e.g. vibration monitoring, surge control, overspeed trip, ESD, etc. so answers could be "yes" for one application "no for others".  Corollary question, if the product does not strictly meet API670 at this time, are the non-conformances minor and could reasonably be overlooked (e.g. (hypothetical / making this up) "devices shall be painted blue") and/or could the non-conformance be overcome in the future via not much more evolution of the product (e.g. (making this up again) "device shall be operable to 120F", but presently it is operable to 110F)?

[tolltroll]

I'd definitely agree with you that the cRIO is computationally robust enough to handle an array of headless monitoring and control tasks simultaneously. The real-time OS and FPGA pairing gives an extremely high level of timing precision and reliability.

As for conforming to API670, unfortunately I don't have a lot of context on that. We don't have any documentation, public-facing or otherwise, that details current or future intent to meet this specification. If you're really burning for a response, I can make a point of trying to find more information on this issue, but at the moment the prospects are looking slim.

Nick

Applications Engineer

[DSM_JAV]

Hi,

I also got surprised not finding any reference of the API 670 (API670) on NI's web site.

Does any one has got any news on that?

Is there no cRIO that has got this certification?

Really?

Best Regards,