Product Launch - Sieger Searchline Excel

The main reason for Chris’ junket, I mean business trip, to the United Kingdom was to attend Sieger’s launch of the new Searchline Excel open path gas detector which is set to revolutionise the art of gas detection.

Here is Chris’ report..........

It has long been recognised that open path infrared gas detection has much to offer the petrochemical industry, especially offshore facilities where platform design and sea breezes ( often gale force ), make gas detection more a matter of luck rather than science.

Open path gas detection, with its ability to monitor gases over large areas at low concentrations is the ideal solution.

Unfortunately, however, experience over the last few years has highlighted significant problems with earlier attempts to master open path technology, namely:

• Difficulty of alignment.
  
• Susceptibility to false alarm due to onset of fog & rain.
  
• Susceptibility to false alarm due to solar flooding ( sun light ).
  
• Susceptibility to false alarm from spurious light sources
  ( mercury lamps / flares ).
  

The reputation of open path technology has taken a severe battering over the past few years, with many systems being decommissioned or inhibited from "shut down" functions.

Enter Searchline Excel - Sieger’s 4^th generation of open path gas detection and the culmination of 15 years experience in the field.

The design process for Excel featured input from customer partners from the petrochemical industry to ensure all of the known weaknesses were addressed.

Searchline Excel utilises a unique Xenon flash lamp as the infrared light source, providing at specific band lengths a signal significantly stronger than the suns intensity.

New solid state detectors, sourced from the aerospace industry, are utilised to monitor the hydrocarbon specific light frequencies from the Xenon flash lamp. These solid state detectors, unlike the leadsalt detectors previously used, are able to monitor light intensities greater than that of the sun.

As such, the hydrocarbon specific infrared signal from the Xenon flash lamp can be monitored accurately, even when sunlight is aimed directly into the receiver.

Heated optical surfaces ensure that Excel is unaffected by driven rain or ice.

State of the art microcircuit technology has meant that Excel tips the scales at a svelte 4kg ( inclusive of stainless steel mounting bracket ).

Searchline Excel’s new proprietary software monitors for both the fingerprint & frequency ( 3 Hz ) of the Xenon flash lamp, rejecting all other light sources and automatically adjusting signal amplification to compensate for signal scatter by fog or rain.

Searchline Excel is the new standard in open path gas detection guaranteeing:

• Accurate & maintenance free operation.
  
• Enhanced plant safety through early detection of gas leaks.
  
• Simple alignment & rugged vibration tolerant design.
  
• Immunity to false alarms from solar interference ( sunlight ).
  
• Immunity to false alarms from fog & rain interference.
  
• Immunity to false alarms from spurious light sources.