Online Valve and Drive Monitoring With Adam Siplug – Comparison of Measurement Uncertainties vs. Traditional At-The-Valve Testing

Abstract

Applied in nearly all plant systems with specific safety-related or availability-related functions the proper design-based valve operation is a key factor for overall plant performance. Therefore valves are a significant part of a plant maintenance program and a considerable equipment group for predictive maintenance.The conventional approach is recurrent at-the-valve testing during outages. It is mainly linked to preventive maintenance tasks exemplarily to verify correct actuator limit switch setting and validate torque / force values related to given margins.The focus of the paper is to discuss and compare measurement and evaluation uncertainties of Framatome’s indirect ADAM®/SIPLUG® MCC diagnostics vs. traditional at-the-valve testing. The target is to get a reasonable clustering of valve population regarding applicability of MCC diagnostics (integral diagnosis uncertainties < design given margins). The approach covers different relevant uncertainties, their effects and the resulting overall diagnosis accuracy.