Recent Achievements of SEAM

Oil Equipment Monitoring System - a project with the world's largest oil sand corporation

　

SEAM has been commissioned by the world's largest oil sand corporation, to develop a monitoring system for its oil exploration and production equipment. The system ensures smooth operation of oil sand extraction and its highly efficient output.

The oil sand company is in possession of 173 billion barrels of crude oil. The resultant suspension of production can prove costly for the company. The system developed by SEAM team can monitor the operation and rate of deterioration of the oil exploration and production equipment. With the help of its pre-warning alarms, maintenance staffs are alerted when accessory parts should be repaired or replaced before a piece of inspected equipment fails to operate.

By using the monitoring system, the company can replace those easily worn-out parts to avoid severe deterioration, which may ultimately require replacement of the whole piece of equipment. In addition, the system can help the company to determine the life cycle of the inspected equipment, make necessary remedy to reduce maintenance costs and ensure continuous production.

The site for oil sand exploration.

　

Awarded the National Natural Science Foundation of China Fund for the Research in PIPELINE Integrity Monitoring

　

Pipelines are crucial infrastructure in any city. However, in service pipelines are prone to aggressive environments, rendering them subject to higher rates of corrosion and fatigue, which may cause them to deteriorate, leak, and eventually even rupture if not found at an early stage of development.

Guided-wave technology is used for the health monitoring of surface/ buried pipelines. It first utilizes mode analysis for the selection of a special wave that is uniquely suitable for a particular type of pipe's material and dimensions. It then combines with advanced ultrasonic transducers to control the generation/ reception of an optimized guided-wave within the wall boundary of an inspected pipeline. Hence, the desired guided-wave can travel for a long way quickly with small attenuation. Consequently, it can be used to detect any surface/subsurface defect that may exist in a long pipeline.

　

　

　

　

　

　

Scenes of pipe rupture.

The comparison of reflected signals obtained from a cracked and a normal pipe covered by soil.

　

Simulation on the guided-waves propagating along a cracked pipes

　

　

Funded by industries - an automatic fault detection and fuel saving system for power GENERATORS

　

Because of tight budget, factory owners usually purchase second-hand power generators to ensure the continuity of power supply in factories. However, the owners do not have expertise in assessing the current health status of the generators. Hence, most of these generators are working in low efficiency and wasting expensive fuel. An automatic health monitoring system for generator has been developed by SEAM so that the owners can access the operating conditions of their generators even the owners are lack of knowledge on this aspect. Through the help of embedded expert system, the system can automatically detect faults that are commonly occurring in generators. It can also highlight the most probably occurred fault and determine its severity in damaging the inspected generator. The system should be applicable not only to power generators, but also to automobiles, ships, etc., that has combustion engines.

Industrial type of power generator.

Expert System for automatic fault diagnosis and prognosis.

　

　

On-road TRUCK's instantaneous safety evaluation system thru mobile/GPS based remote advisory and fleet management

Today, automobiles are being maintained in garages. Automobiles under frequent servicing cannot guarantee them to escape from accidents if imminent defects occurr when the automobiles are running on road. Tremendous casualties and huge economic losses are caused by imminent failures. Expensive fuel is also lost due to leaking components. Although new automobiles have some built-in sensors to monitor the conditions of running automobiles, such as cooling water temperature, level of motor oil, etc., other critical operational-based components, such as engine, tires, steering mechanism, do not have any monitoring device. To prevent unnecessary catastrophe and save fuel, a real-time safety assessment and just-in-time advisory system via GPRS/GPS communication for on-road trucks have been developed by SEAM. However, there is no much space and cost margin for installing extra sensors in a truck’s engine compartment. Hence, a novel approach has been designed that is capable of assessing the current operation condition of a running truck by using minimum and low-cost sensors. Such approach is possible only because of the existence of our innovative diagnostic algorithms. This, coupled with our recently developed wireless monitoring techniques, can alert a remote maintenance centre if any anomaly has occurred to a running truck. The centre will send just-in-time advice to the driver via GPRS type of mobile communication so that the driver can perform appropriate remedies to prevent the occurrence of catastrophe. Moreover, the GPS system can provide information of the truck to the remote maintenance center so that smart fleet management for hundreds of truck becomes possible.

On-road TRUCK's instantaneous safety evaluation and advisory system.