GAS TURBINE TEST SYSTEM

Problem Scope

For this application, Dresser-Rand needed an extensible system capable of monitoring numerous signals interfaced to a large gas turbine. Well over a
thousand signals needed to be collected from an extremely varied set of data acquisition devices and instruments. The configuration of this system and
viewing of data needed to be available from any of a number of computers connected to the data acquisition network. Also, data needed to be available for additional processing on other connected networks.  Dresser-Rand required that all of the components that were necessary to run a test, such as the server, database, acquisition, configuration, and viewing, were able to be run on one computer or distributed over several computers.

Solution

This system utilizes Client-Server architecture to acquire signals from a variety of devices and logs the data to a central SQL Server database. The data is then processed and viewed on remote terminals. It is modularly designed to facilitate changes in acquisition hardware as well as viewing and processing software. There are three important components to this application: a SQL Server data management system, TCP/IP packet based messages for configuration and data, and a flexible, applicationindependent driver model.

National Instrument’s LabVIEW was used for the bulk of this project. C, Visual Basic, and Fortran were also used to develop analysis routines and interface with various pieces of hardware.

System Overview