Fluke TiX1000 Application Note

High resolution

infrared inspection for

oil and gas applications

Unscheduled downtime can cost millions. Professionals who
work in the oil and gas industry know it is critical to maintain
stable, continuous operations without sacrificing safety. They
also know that regular maintenance, quick diagnosis of potential
problems, and clear documentation are key to keeping produc-
tion going smoothly and meeting regulatory requirements.

A multipurpose monitoring
and troubleshooting tool for
oil and gas applications

Infrared cameras offer the ver­satility, accuracy, and usability
to address a wide variety of
inspection and troubleshooting
activities in the oil and gas
industry. Whether used onshore
or offshore, upstream or down­stream, infrared cameras allow
you to capture two-dimensional
representations of the apparent
surface temperatures of a wide
variety of equipment and pro­cesses. You can collect heat
signatures for process equipment,
as well as for leaks in pipes and
tanks, without touching those
surfaces and without interfering
with the process. The images and
measurements from that inspec­tion can help you quickly identify
problems at an early stage.

However, not all thermal
imagers are created equal. The
new Fluke TiX1000, TiX660 and
TiX640 infrared cameras—part of
the Fluke Expert Series line—are
ideal for oil and gas applications

because they allow you to col-
lect significant information from
a safe distance. That means you
can often use these cameras to
inspect equipment or trouble
spots without interrupting pro-
duction and without getting a
hot work permit.

The standard 32x zoom
and optional telephoto lenses
on these Fluke Expert Series
infrared cameras are powerful
enough to produce high resolu­tion images of targets over 100
feet away with a crisp level of
detail so you can quickly pin­point temperature anomalies.

Top TEN

Oil and gas inspection applications
for Expert Series infrared cameras

1. Remote sites/compressor stations

2. Towers, stacks that are burning,

3. Steam traps, leaks, cat cracker degradation

4. Horizontal flares on offshore rigs

5. Top drives

6. Tank level

7. Electrical systems

8. Equipment monitoring

9. Motors and drives

10. Bearings

Application Note

and air scrubbers

From the Fluke Digital Library @ www.fluke.com/library

Expedite inspection and
troubleshooting

Oil and gas production envi­ronments can be extremely
challenging. The hazardous
nature of the products, the hot,
moist, dusty and corrosive condi­tions, and less than optimal
lighting, drive inspectors to
complete their tasks quickly and
leave the area. You need to have
confidence that the infrared
camera you’re using can identify
potential problems at an early
stage, because you don’t want
to have to make a second trip, or
deal with the fallout of imprecise
imaging.

That’s why the new Fluke
Expert Series infrared cam­eras with their high resolution

imaging, long distance accuracy,
thermal sensitivity, advanced
focus systems, flexible viewing
options, and other innovative
features are so well suited to
this environment. They let you
work from a safe distance and
still get ultra-high resolution
images that provide detailed
temperature information.
Because they deliver this perfor­mance at such a long distance,
they save a lot of climbing and
allow you to inspect areas you
wouldn’t be able to get close
enough to see otherwise without
shutting down production.

Here are just some of the
inspection areas where these
cameras can save you time,
energy, and downtime:

Gain inspection accuracy, versatility, and speed with the
new Fluke Expert Series infrared cameras

• More diagnostic informa-
tion. The more detail you can

see in an infrared image, the
more information you have
to work with. These Fluke
Expert Series infrared cam­eras give you both detail and
information.

• Super high resolution
images. Get four times the

standard mode resolution
and pixels (up to 3.1 million
pixels on the TiX1000 and up
to 1.2 million pixels with the
TiX660) with Super Resolution
mode for crisp images that
deliver maximum detail.

• Large 5.6 inch rotatable
LCD display lets you more

easily inspect over, under, and
around difficult-to-navigate
equipment.

2 Fluke Corporation High resolution thermal imaging for oil and gas applications

• A tiltable LCoS color view-
finder display with 800 x

600 pixel resolution provides
great visibility in daylight
applications.

• Advanced focus systems
offer a choice of manual, auto
focus and LaserSharp
Focus and EverSharp mul­tifocal recording features,
for quick, accurate, in-focus
image capture.

• Maximum lens flexibility
with field replaceable optional
lenses (2x and 4x telephoto
lenses and two wide-angle
lenses gives you the abil­ity to capture high-resolution
images close up or at a dis­tance, eliminating the need in
many cases to climb a tower
or stack.

®

Auto

• Gray scale and full color
imaging serve a variety of

applications.

• Video capture with voice
and text annotations makes

it easier to document trouble
points.

• Fluke Connect™ wireless
compatibility allows inspec-

tors to send images and
measurements to smartphones
and iPads with the Fluke
Connect

®

mobile app for team

collaboration*.

• Handheld versatility and the
included neck strap make it
easy to carry if you do have to
climb a ladder.

*Within providers wireless service area.

Evaluate corrosion or str uctural integ rity of
storage tanks.

Easily inspect stacks and flares from the
ground.

Monitor ing of large electrical inf rastruc­tures that support oil and gas facilit ies.

• Remote sites/compressor
stations. These remote sites

are linked to regional opera­tional centers via freeway
and cellular towers that con­stantly transmit data on their
operating conditions. Rather
than having to climb 180­feet towers to check for loose
connections and other weak
links, technicians can use the
32x zoom on these TiX Series
infrared cameras or a tele­photo or super telephoto lens
to examine these areas from
the ground, quickly, safely,
and accurately.

• Towers, stacks that are
burning or steaming, and
air scrubbers can be easily

scanned from the ground to
evaluate their performance.

• Steam traps, leaks in
hard-to-reach areas such
as cement kilns, or deg­radation of fluid catalytic
crackers “cat crackers”.

You can point these infrared
cameras at a hard-to-reach
targets and swivel the large

5.6 inch articulating LCD dis­play into a position where you
can see the image.

• Horizontal flare inspection
on an offshore rig. With the

high resolution and zooming
capabilities at long distances,
you can inspect an offshore
flare either from the rig or
from a helicopter. The high
frame-refresh capabilities,

helps you spot sudden rapid
temperature changes, that
might indicate that the flare
is about to burn out.

• Top drive inspection.
Rather than have to climb up
an oil drilling rig, you can
inspect the top drive from the
ground using the 32x zoom
capability. The tiltable color
viewfinder provides a clear
view of the image even in
sunlight.

• Tank level inspection. Using
a wide angle lens with the
high definition capabilities of
the Fluke TiX1000 infrared
camera, you can quickly scan
tank levels from a distance.
Offloading or onloading fuel.
You can use these Expert
Series cameras at a distance
to scan the pipes.

In addition to long distance
exterior inspections, you can use
these Fluke TiX series infrared
cameras to troubleshoot the
standard equipment in a refinery
from a safe distance so you may
not have to secure a hot work
permit or get closer to high
voltage.

• Inspecting electrical sys-
tems. These infrared cameras

help pinpoint potential prob­lems with loose and corroded
connections, electrical imbal­ance, failing transformers
and switchgear and faults in
motor control centers. You can

clearly view the image in less
than optimal light conditions
on the large 5.6-inch backlit
display.

• Monitoring. Helps identify
problems in refractory-lined
equipment, heaters, boilers,
furnaces, heat exchangers,
steam lines and traps, pro­cess and safety valves, steam
turbines, process lines and
mechanical rotating equip­ment—both in the plant and
in the field.

• Checking motors and
drives. You can use these

Fluke TiX infrared cameras
for regular inspections to:

– See if the motors and asso-

ciated panels and controls
are operating too hot

– Track down specific failed

components

– Check for phase imbal-

ance, bad connections, and
abnormal heating on the
electrical supply

• Inspecting bearings.
Capture two-dimensional
high resolution infrared
images of bearing and hous­ing temperatures, to compare
current operating tempera­tures to benchmarks and
detect potential failures in
time to prevent them.

3 Fluke Corporation High resolution thermal imaging for oil and gas applications

Multiply your resources with
Fluke Connect® wireless capabilities

With the Fluke Connect mobile app you can
transmit images and measurements from Fluke
Expert Series infrared cameras in real-time to
any smart phone that has the Fluke Connect
mobile app. That makes it easy to share results
with team members because everybody on the
ShareLive
and measurements remotely that you’re seeing on
site. That can help you get questions answered or
get approvals on the spot and expedite repairs.

from your smart phone to EquipmentLog
in secure Fluke Cloud
all authorized users. In that way you can compare
real time measurements to baseline data to iden­tify problems and make better decisions faster.

™ video call can see the same images

You can also save images and measurements

™

storage for easy access by

™* history

See what you’re missing

The common requirements for all of
these applications are clear image reso­lution, temperature detail and accuracy,
speed, and flexibility to get images in
areas that may be hard to reach. Those
are the very capabilities that set these
Fluke infrared cameras apart.

To find out more about how these
versatile, high resolution, high accu­racy cameras can help you keep your
production processes moving smoothly,
consult your Fluke sales representative
or visit www.fluke.com/TiX1000 for
more information.

You can also use SmartView

®

software
included with all Fluke infrared cameras to
document your findings in a report that includes
thermal images, visible light images, and blended
images to communicate problems you find and to
suggest repairs.

Fluke Connect™ is not available in all countries.
*Within providers wireless service area.

4 Fluke Corporation High resolution thermal imaging for oil and gas applications

Fluke. Keeping your world
up and running.

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Eindhoven, The Netherlands

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®