The teaming of multiple technologies for condition monitoring can provide valuable information and also give another way to confirm an issues. The teaming of Infrared Thermography and Vibration Analysis for mechanical issues is one way of doing this. Heat and vibration (or movement) are both indicators of issues and many times can give further clarification to a problem.
Here is an example that was done on a belt driven piece of equipment. We were called to show a maintenance supervisor and plant manager a small infrared camera to supplement their annual electrical infrared inspection performed by an outside company. We went to a couple of pieces of equipment that had been giving them some trouble. The maintenance staff had tried a couple of repairs based on the best guesses for what they thought was the problem, but the problems hadn't been solved.
After quickly scaning the equipment and finding a motor temperature that was slightly elevated; I scanned the belt through the guard and found something odd.
Asking the supervisor to look at the issue he immediately said, "That looks like a sheave misalignment issue. The back belt is hotter than the front."
I replied, "Well we can verify that in short order."
I took out my Datastick Vibration Analyzer, and in a couple of short steps choose a standard ISO setup for the vibration reading. Knowing that shave misalignment will shows up vibration by a high 1xRPM in the axial direction, I took a reading on the motor (the sheave shown in the image above).
The reading (shown above) confirmed exactly what the supervisor suspected. The 1xRPM at 1800RPM of the motor was rather high and exceeded the ISO Causing Damage Alarm Level.
To further confirm the issue, a reference reading was taken on an . So I took an axial reading on the adjacent identical machine.
Just by comparing the overall levels of the two readings we note a 55% lower reading on the 2nd machine. This confirmed the problem.
Let's look at some general costs analysis to see the value of condition monitoring compared to waiting until equipment failure.
Cost New: approx. $10,865 to $21,296 (based on google search for motor size)
Rebuild Costs: $3,621.67 to 7,089.67 (Based on general 1/3 cost of new for a repair.)
When we look at the cost we can see that in a little more than two finds both the infrared camera and vibration analyzer will be paid for on the repair cost alone. Many times it is tough to know the actual cost of production but it is still easy to see that taking even a simplified approach; early detection on equipment that we may or may not know is operating in a reduced capacity can reduce our repair cost, improve or reaction time and over all equipment readiness.
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