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mechanical engineering questions

2015-03-08

Predictive maintenance tools

Predictive maintenance tools are given below:

Vibration Analysis -It is useful to check health check of rotating equipment's by  checking vibration of bearing. Vibration checking shall be carried out for horizontal, vertical and axial vibration.

Thermography - Thermography is carried out for checking invisible thermal signatures of impeding damage before the damage occur in electrical circuit. When current flows through an electrical circuit electrical energy converted in to heat energy. Sometimes due to abnormality high heat generated and it is wasteful and damaging electrical circuit.

Ultrasonic - It uses high frequency sound energy to carry out examination and measurements. It is also useful to find out dimensional measurement and detection of flow in pipes. In non destructive material testing method it is useful for find out discontinuity in material.

Infrared temperature - It is useful to check temperature of gearbox, rotating equipment's bearing temperature and for health check up of other rotating equipment's.

Lubrication analysis - It is useful to check out health condition of lubricants. By carry out lubrication analysis, we can find out actual health check of oil. So, we can increase the changing frequency of oil replacement. We can find out actual condition of oil, so ultimately life of equipment's increased and cost saving by reducing oil replacement frequency.   

Temperature and vibration are typically the best predictive indicators; however lubricant analysis is a good indicator as well. Regardless of the methods you incorporate you must be disciplined in the data collection frequencies and analysis of the data. Additionally, a robust root cause analysis process can not only identify failure modes but can also be used as a predictive tool.