Indepth

Instrumentation and

Process Control

Automation The Key to Water Management

By Rakesh Mishra

W
An efficient automation system ensures optimum utilisation of water improving the efficiency of the water supply system and its equipments. It helps in preventive maintenance and provides the accurate database for plant optimisation.

Electromagnetic flowmeter DN2400 years. Most of this fund is being allocated for drinking water and sanitation projects. All new drinking water projects in India are focusing on: 24x7 supply New water supply schemes Complete automation of the water supply schemes Water metering in the distribution network to know unaccounted flow of water(UFW) Domestic water metering Modernisation of old water supply schemes Instrumentation and automation is day by day becoming a necessary component of water supply schemes and constitutes 3-5% of the complete project cost. The objective of automation shall be as below: Objectives Metering and water quality analysis Metering to know the treatment losses in WTP To maintain the level of water in CWR within the specified limits to avoid CWR overflow Vibration monitoring on pumps to avoid unplanned shutdowns To match the average pumping rate under steady state conditions to steady state output from a treatment plant

ater is one of the most important natural resources. Being used for various domestic and industrial purposes; there is a need to measure the amount of water we use. Whether its measuring household or office building water consumption, measuring water in open channels coming from natural reservoirs, or measuring water used inside chemical or power plants; water flow measurement is often a necessity. Assured treated water supplies and environmentally acceptable wastewater treatment is the most pressing problems facing the water industry in India. Today, most of the state water bodies in India are available with financing options from various multilateral financing agencies (such as ADB, World Bank, JBIC and the US Aid) and the Central Government financing through JNNURM to fund the water related projects. Under the ADB Water Financing Programme(WFP), the bank has invested 790mn USD from 19902005. WFP has proposed to increase ADBs overall investment in water to over 2bn USD annually in next five years. The government of India has created a national fund (JNNURM) to encourage sustainable urban development growth in 63 cities of India. The government has decided to invest about 11bn USD in the next seven

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Indepth
Instrumentation and

Process Control

Automatic startups and shutdowns Alarms and fail safe tripping for protection of equipments To provide upstream and downstream information for proper plant operation Provision of manual control in the event of failure of automatic failures

Pumping cost per year as result of pressure drop

Metering and water quality analysis

To understand and know the supply, demand behaviour and the WTP efficiency it is very important to measure the quantity of water at various stages in any water supply scheme such as at raw water intake, WTP inlet and outlet. For measuring the treatment losses, flowmeters are required to be installed at the inlet to backwash tanks, outlet to backwash tank and de-sludging line. In the industrial sector, turbine and positive displacement flowmeters were the predominant technology types. However, while these two categories have traditionally dominated utility water and wastewater measurements, new technology meters such as fullbore inline electromagnetic flowmeters are beginning to make inroads.

The pressure loss of a single mechanical bulk meter and strainer will be approximately 0.5bar. The energy (pumping) costs per year as a result of this pressure loss can be calculated by using the formula: Energy cost = (W/1000) (Operating hours per year) (Rs/kW.hr) Where: W = P (kPa) x Q (LPM) 60 P is the pressure drop across metering skid in kPa Q is the flow rate in LPM is the pump efficiency Assuming that the P is 0.5Bar (50kPa), flow Q is 2,000m3/hr (33,000LPM), pump efficiency is 80%, the pipeline is in operation throughout the year 8,760hrs and the price of power is Rs4.5/kW.hr W = 50 x 33,000 = 34,375 60 x 0.8 Energy cost = 34,375 x 8,760 x 4.5 1,000 Energy cost = Rs1,355,063/- per year

Advantages of electromagnetic flowmeters over mechanical meters

Unlike mechanical meters, magnetic flowmeters do not have any moving parts and hence there is no wear and tear which results in extensive maintenance. The performance of mechanical meters is greatly affected by suspended solids in water. However, the same is not true for magnetic flowmeters. The electromagnetic flowmeters can be used for slurry applications having high solid contents. Magnetic flowmeters do not restrict the flow and hence pressure drop is negligible. However, their moving parts obstruct the flow and create a pressure drop.

Water quality analysers

Electromagnetic flowmeter DN2400

Let us now look at the savings through higher accuracy of electromagnetic flowmeters in comparison with any mechanical meters. Consider the following case: Flow rate: 4,000m3/hr Cost of water: Rs9/m3 Magnetic flowmeter Accuracy: 0.5% Mechanical meter Accuracy: 2% (best estimated under site conditions) Possible error: 20m3/hr Possible error: 80m3/hr ( 2% error) Therefore, improvement in measurements by using inline calibrated meter = 80 - 20 = 60m3/hr Cost savings per day = 60 x 24 x 9 =Rs12, 960/Cost savings per month = 12, 960 x 30 = Rs388, 800/Cost savings per year = 388, 800 x 12 = Rs4, 665, 600/-

pH Water quality depends on the source. Extreme conditions of hard or soft nature of water are harmful. pH is thus an important parameter to indicate the purity of water. Continuous monitoring of pH levels help in keeping a close track of changes of pH in sample water and also helps to take a control action to keep pH within required bands. The most important part of any pH system is the pH electrode. Proper selection of suitable pH electrodes for given application is important to get accurate results. This also helps in keeping pH system online all the time and requires less maintenance. pH electrodes measuring glass should withstand chemicals since treatment of water involves the use of different chemicals. Turbidity Turbidity is another important parameter to indicate high quality of drinking water and is measured with light scattering principle. Even though the water is free from suspended solids, there is good chance of having high turbidity which carries high level of micro-organisms harmful for human consumption. As per international standards, turbidity of drinking water has to be of less than 5NTU. Some stringent quality standards call for turbidity of less than 1NTU. Such low value, accurate measurement is possible with good quality turbidity sensors. The sensors do not respond to false signals like reflections from walls of mounting chambers or reflections because of natural light sources. Also, they are free from interferences
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Indepth
Instrumentation and

Process Control

like air bubbles present in water. Self cleaning facilities like wiper cleaning or ultrasonic cleaning will be an added feature of good quality turbidity sensors. Residual chlorine Chlorine is used to disinfect water from all bacteria. One should have optimum levels of chlorine in drinking water. Excess chlorine is harmful to the human body and less chlorine wont keep water safe for a long time. Hence, one always keeps some excess chlorine in the water apart from levels which take part in treatment of water. This is called as free chlorine or residual chlorine. Most of the chlorine sensors measure hypochlorous acid. To calculate residual chlorine from HOCL, pH compensation is required. Also residual chlorine measurement requires sample temperature compensation.

A typical water supply scheme Spare part inventory can be planned Necessary pump data related to VMS can be transmitted to the control station Any pump vibration monitoring system would primarily measure relative shaft vibration and absolute bearing vibration. A relative shaft vibration is the vibration mainly measured for journal bearing type large pumps/motors in microns. It is measured by mounting non-contact type eddy current sensors on the shaft. Absolute bearing vibration is the vibration which is mainly measured for antifriction/ roller/ball bearing type pumps/motors in mm/sec. It is measured by mounting contact type accelerometer or velocity sensors on the bearing housing.

Vibration monitoring system(VMS) for pumps

Many progressive water boards in India are today implementing the online vibration monitoring systems for all critical rotary equipments as a part of preventative maintenance exercise to avoid any unplanned maintenance. VMS systems are gaining importance because of the various reasons: By online monitoring of critical levels of machines 1 and 2, the if and when equipments required for maintenance can be defined Shutdowns will be planned and production losses can be avoided Optimum usage of pumps is possible through the online vibration levels Expenses on emergency repairs are reduced Increase in productivity is observed through unplanned shutdowns

Automation

Any water supply scheme would comprise of raw water pumping station, water treatment plant and clear water pumping station. All water supply schemes shall have automations including: Mechanical equipments Electrical systems Instrumentation equipments

Instrumentation at raw water intake, WTP and CWT

The entire instrumentation system is required to receive and store the information from instrumentation, electrical and mechanical equipments. Electrical systems For measuring the pump efficiency, input voltage, amperage, power consumption and power factors shall be measured using energy meters having Rs485 communication feature. The data can thus be transmitted to remotely to central control stations.

Time Machine stress vs time

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Instrumentation and

Process Control

Status of all circuit breakers Status of all LT motors Winding temperature and bearing temperature of motors Status of flash mixer, flocculator and bridge drive motors Status of chemical mixing motors on alum tank

Mechanical equipments Status of all pumps (raw water pump, dewatering pump, backwash pump) Status of butterfly valves on individual pumps delivery Status of motorised valve and gates in the inlet system, sludge bleeding valve, valves on filter bed and so on Status of chemical feeder valve Thrust bearing temperature of raw water pumps

Instrumentation equipments

Figure 1: System architecture Traditionally, telemetry (tele - remote and metron = measurement, a Greek word) has been used to fulfil the needs for remote data acquisition and control. M2M brings to telemetry discipline through open standards and protocol. The extraordinary expansion of mobile digital telephony, especially GSM has stimulated the development of telemetry systems. Open protocols (TCP/IP, HTTP) and formats (XML, WBXML) were embraced from the internet community, thus adding interoperability between telemetry systems. Any telemetry system would be based on the following components Sensors/actuators (field instruments) Remote terminal unit (PLC) Base stations (receivers, gateways or central collection point) SCADA software Figure 1 shows a typical telemetry based on GSM /GPRS/EDGE. Wireless telemetry systems allow data acquisition and control of remote devices using wireless technology. Signal from field instruments are send to the PLC Located at RWP, WTP and CWP. PLC sends the data on the modbus output to the intelligent machine and the machine (M2M) terminal. This M2M terminal enables any machine to communicate on GSM/GPRS/EDGE. This terminal is capable of controlling a remote device from a central server in a control room.

Electromagnetic flowmeter at the raw water intake on main header line Electromagnetic flowmeter at WTP inlet, on de-sludging line, inlet and outlet of backwash tank Level of water in the intake the level of water in surge control tanks Level in alum solution tank Water level of backwash tank Pressure transmitters at the delivery of each pump Differential pressure transmitters for head loss measurement at filter Vibration monitoring system for RWP, WTP and CWP Turbidity and pH measurement of raw water and treated water Residual chlorine in clear water Air flowmeter on compressed air

Alarm systems

Alarms shall be provided for the followings: Power failures High temperature of winding and bearings Motor trip over load Pump failed to start or pump failed to stop Low differential head across filter bed High level in tanks

Control automation at raw water intake, WTP and CWP

Gateway server function

The data of raw water intake, WTP and CWP are sent to the respective local control stations for local monitoring and for manual control. The data from these local control stations is taken to the master control station which can be few kilometres away. The data can be transmitted to the master control station by using various technologies such as GSM, GPRS, VSAT and so on.
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The gateway server receives data from multiple M2M terminals and can store in its database. Multiple clients can be connected to the gateway server and if any of the SCADA servers are connected to the gateway, the data received from the M2M terminal will be sent instantaneously to the server. Incase a SCADA server is not connected or the server is connected later to the gateway, the gateway and SCADA software will carry out data synchronisation so that all the data received from the M2M terminal are sent to the SCADA server.

Indepth
Instrumentation and

Process Control

Telemetry systems can be provided for data as well as voice communication between different stations (local control station and master control station).

Conclusion

The growing population coupled with the industry growth and urbanisation has resulted in increased demand of water thereby reducing the per capita availability of water. For optimum utilisation of water resources, we have to adopt the most appropriate measures and put in place efficient water management systems. An efficient automation system provides the same and will help in improving the efficiency of the water supply system and its equipments. This will help in preventive maintenance and shall provide the accurate database for plant optimisation.
About the Author
Rakesh Mishra, with 15 years of experience in metering and automation, is currently the Business Unit Head, Water and Wastewater, for Forbes Marshall Pvt Ltd. For further information on the author, contact bmg@forbesmarshall.com or write to us at content@eawater.com

Flow vs time trend report

SCADA software

The SCADA software is installed in a PC. A SQL server database is configured on the PC where the SCADA software is installed. The software would get connected to M2M gateway software through the internet. Once it is connected, all data from the M2M terminal is available at the gateway which is then transferred to the software. Incase the SCADA software is connected continuously, data received from M2M terminal to the gateway will be instantaneously received by the SCADA server from the gateway. Necessary reports, graphics, static/dynamic mimics can be generated from the SCADA software. Static/dynamic mimic can be made as per the scheme. Necessary reports can be generated that are of great use during the operation of the water supply. Software can be programmed to create a trend report of all the key process parameters. A historical report of all the parameters can also be generated from the system. Instantaneous report on all the key parameters can also be generated.

Status report
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