Monitoring steam traps has been the focus of many posts. I was alerted to a new demonstration video that I wanted to share, Steam Trap Product Demo. It shows not only the monitoring technology but also how the steam traps can be monitored remotely by Emerson services personnel to provide effective energy management.

Emerson’s Joe Johnson shows how this works. Joe opens noting that steam trap failures are one of the largest sources of excess energy costs in production facilities. Failure can mean poor steam quality as well as increased fuel consumption and emissions.

They can fail in many ways and historically have been checked by infrequent manual, route-based inspections—perhaps once or twice per year. With today’s wireless technologies, it is possible to continuously monitor all these steam traps with a subscription-based service.

Joe shows how a wireless acoustic transmitter—a Rosemount 708 device—clamps to the pipe by the steam trap. It senses for acoustic and temperature changes. With Emerson Connected Services experts monitoring all this information, they can diagnose the issue and notify plant staff quickly before energy is wasted.

The sensors transmit the data to a gateway and sent via cellular signal to a cloud monitoring environment where these experts analyze the data and make recommendations to repair or replace the traps. Joe explains the Emerson can offer the whole solution with hardware, communications infrastructure and monitoring service for subscription.

Visit the Connected Services Powered by IIoT and Plantweb digital ecosystem sections on Emerson.com to learn more about the technologies and services for steam traps and other assets in your manufacturing or production facility. You can also connect with other digital transformation experts in the IIoT & Digital Transformation group in the Emerson Exchange 365 community.