Patent ID: 8032234

Claim:
A method of diagnosing a condition of a component of an industrial process control system used to process a process fluid; coupling a process variable transmitter field device to process piping of the industrial process; the process piping carrying a process fluid; measuring a process variable of the process fluid with the process variable transmitter field device, the process variable comprises flow velocity; communicating the process variable to a control room over a process control loop; calculating histogram information in the process variable transmitter field device based upon the measured process variable and time information related to a duration of time the measured process variable has a value, the histogram information comprising cumulative time durations during which the measured process variable has had a value within a plurality of ranges of values; determining a total effective wear time of the component based upon the histogram information and a wear scaling factor applied to the histogram, wherein the total effective wear time is based upon an increasing and decreasing wear scaling factor which is non-monotonic with respect to increasing values of the measured process variable; and diagnosing, in the transmitter field device, a condition of the component of the industrial process based upon a comparison of the determined total effective wear time to a threshold wherein the diagnostic condition is indicative of wear.