Case Study: a UK oil refinery achieves cost savings and improved slurry monitoring with Crane Electronics' custom torque transducer solution

Providing an innovative torque monitoring and alert solution at an Oil Refinery

Crane Electronics Group worked with a large oil refinery, part of one of the world's largest oil and gas companies, to address a costly challenge. The refinery's slurry tank mixers used a shear-pin coupling system that would break and trigger an alarm when slurry became too thick, requiring frequent and expensive replacements and causing significant downtime. They approached Crane for a new torque monitoring and alert solution.

Crane Electronics designed and implemented a bespoke system that incorporated a custom torque transducer into the shaft of each mixer. This transducer triggered an alarm at a predefined torque level, alerting engineers to thickening slurry without damaging any components. The solution provided by Crane Electronics saved the customer approximately £125,000 in the following year by eliminating replacement parts and reducing labor costs and downtime.