Industrial Maintenance Solutions

Avoiding unexpected equipment downtime long-term requires a detailed preventive and predictive program. A proper preventive maintenance plan must cover the electric motors and controls in service within the plant. A correctly designed and implemented program will help ensure many hours of operation without unexpected downtime of any equipment.  Following these suggestions will set the plant on the path to a well-designed program, which should include the controls portion of the motors system. Start with a plan A good plan compares the costs of preventive maintenance (PM) and unexpected downtime. It also includes the cost of proper test equipment and tools. Training for in-house teams is needed for testing to be efficient and thorough. In some cases, it may be more cost-effective to use outside sources to perform the more complex tests. The plan must be documented; plan implementation can be quantified to ensure that costs are minimized while the systems are kept in a heal...

Assuming proper design, application, and lubrication, rolling element bearings will fail sooner or later due to their natural material fatigue life limit, but all bearings will fail prematurely from abuse or neglect. BY L. (TEX) LEUGNER Troubleshooting of rolling element bearing problems and recognizing their root cause of failure is often difficult, because many failure types look very similar. This is because bearing failures are almost always precipitated by spalling or flaking conditions of the bearing component surfaces. Spalling occurs when a bearing has reached its fatigue life limit, but also when premature failures occur. For this reason, it is important for the troubleshooter to be aware of and able to recognize all the common failures of rolling element bearings. This ability to correctly troubleshoot and recognize the root cause of bearing failures will lead the analyst to the right conclusions. We often hear the comment, even by knowledgeable and well-meaning enginee...

WHAT IS MAINTENANCE 4.0? Industry 4.0 is a name given to the current trend of automation and data exchange in industrial technologies. It includes the Industrial Internet of things (IIoT), wireless sensors, cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. Industry 4.0 is commonly referred to as the fourth industrial revolution. Maintenance 4.0 is a machine-assisted digital version of all the things we have been doing for the past forty years as humans to ensure our assets deliver value for our organization. Maintenance 4.0 includes a holistic view of sources of data, ways to connect, ways to collect, ways to analyze and recommended actions to take in order to ensure asset function (reliability) and value (asset management) are digitally assisted. For example, traditional Maintenance 1.0 includes sending highly-trained specialists to collect machinery vibration analysis readings on pumps, motors and gearboxes. Maintenance 4.0 includes a wireless vibration sensor conne...

BY BRYAN CHRISTIANSEN. Mechanical components in a factory require the most attention from a maintenance perspective, as they have a high propensity to fail, making it a high priority for maintenance teams. In turn, it is always better to prevent failures than resort to reactive maintenance. It is important to note that routine checks help in preventing mechanical troubles in the factory. Let’s look at some of the most prevalent mechanical failures experienced by machines in a factory. While also considering how routine checks have the potential to be an antidote to mechanical failures. Different forces act on mechanical components while they are in operation. They work in an environment where interaction with other components and people in the factory is necessary. Such factors cause mechanical failures. Common mechanical failures and their causes Wear and tear : The most common mechanical problem experienced in any machine is the wear and tear of components. When machines are in...

Definition : Ensuring that all maintenance practices for components associated with the bearing are at a level to allow the maximum performance of the bearing . These include installation practices, tools used, skills of millwrights, the accuracy of mating components, alignment, and balancing of the rotating assembly. BY DOUGLAS MARTIN. Let's start with a discussion about the effects of a lack of precision maintenance. There was a case of an oil refinery that was having a recurrent failure of a fan. The mean time between repair (as the vibe crew would pick out a defect) was six months. Looking back, I remember how proud the vibe team was and how an outer ring of a bearing on display, marked in paint pen $10,000 in savings, to demonstrate their successful diagnostics. When attending the installation, the first question the millwright asked was why was the tapered adapter sleeve so loose on the shaft prior to driving the bearing up the sleeve? Indeed, it easily slid onto the sh...

BY BHUSHAN NIKAM. Invented in the mid-20th century and typically equipped in process gas centrifugal, dry gas screw compressors and expanders, dry gas seals (DGS) are the preferred gas lubricated dry seal solutions available on the market. They have become the standard for new machines. DGS are robust, simple, consume less power, and are more efficient in reducing leakage than their predecessor. Various configurations such as tandem with and without an intermediate labyrinth ( Figure 1 ), single ( Figure 2 ), and double ( Figure 3 ) are available & shall be selected based on process requirements. In this article, we discuss the various DGS failure modes and how they should be addressed:  PRESSURIZED HOLD/STANDBY Pressurized hold, also called settle-out condition, occurs when the compressor remains at a standstill, but the casing is pressurized. If an alternate process gas lacks sufficient pressure and flow, process gas enters the seal cavity through the process labyrinth ...