Professionals tasked with maintenance of critical and semi-critical rotating equipment found in industrial setting facilities know that it’s normal for there to be some vibration, which tends to come from pumps, motors and compressors.
However, if excess vibration occurs this can damage the equipment, reducing its working life, and cause unwanted and costly downtime.
To counter such issues, maintenance engineers rely on vibration data to monitor equipment, identifying potential problems early, prioritising interventions, maximising machinery health/performance levels and minimising running costs.
Armed with this data, engineers can in many cases not only eliminate the need to take machines off-line for repair but also order any replacement parts and tools well in advance of them being needed.
Typical faults that engineers are looking for include unbalance, misalignment or bearing failure. Adaptive alignment systems using single-laser technology can help maintenance teams to carry out alignment checks on simple motor pumps or more complex equipment such as machine trains or gearboxes.
Such adaptive systems support remote team collaboration with Cloud data transfer and ‘active situational intelligence’ software, which enables adaptive alignment systems to adjust automatically when faced with such challenges as coupling backlash, extreme environmental conditions and gross misalignments.
Hand-held, wired or wireless?
It is important for any vibration monitoring strategy to use sensors that are suited specifically to the asset they are checking – in other words, maintenance engineers must have the correct tools at their disposal when carrying out vibration monitoring on pumps, motors and compressors.
By far the best option is for maintenance engineers to operate within a complete condition-based monitoring strategy that is based around a combination of remote monitoring and in-person evaluation.
By carrying out an initial asset criticality assessment, it’s possible to determine whether machines need to be monitored continuously using a wired or wireless sensor or whether they can simply be monitored via a hand-held tool.
It is also essential to work on the basis that acquiring the most detailed data possible is not the goal of any monitoring system – it must be to use the tool that delivers the correct data for each particular piece of equipment.
Hand-held vibration tools, for example, which include vibration meters and testers, are usually compact in design and intended for use by engineers at all levels, without the need for special training. However, their functionality and flexibility are limited due to them having to be held physically by an operator on-site.
By contrast, wired vibration sensors are high-performance tools that are able to measure vibration data multiple times a second and carry out continuous monitoring without any human interaction, ensuring not only routine faults are identified. However, using wired sensors requires them to be mounted in specific locations because of their cabling requirements.
Wireless vibration monitoring
Thanks to advances in technology, the cost of using wireless vibration sensors is no longer prohibitive and there are many more of them on the market. For added flexibility, there are even vibration sensors that operate without connection to direct power (including batteries) because they can collect energy from the heat and light in their environments.
One vital factor that must be taken into consideration at all times – and particularly in today’s climate – is effective energy management because transmitting data can use considerable amounts of energy. To this end, an organisation needs to strike the right balance in terms of the volume of data that it wants to be transmitted and how often.
The final essential element in any vibration monitoring system is software. Many packages include automatic alerts that will let maintenance teams know in good time when assets are starting to experience vibrations that are not within the expected parameters.
Such software enables operators to use dashboards and reports to track, trend and share data so that at all times everybody knows the status of every asset and is able to divert resources to where they are needed most.
To conclude, vibration analysis is a vital part of any machine condition monitoring system that enables teams to be pro-active rather than reactive in their maintenance operations.
Having measurements taken 24 hours a day, seven days a week and made accessible to engineers in easily understandable format enables teams to have precise knowledge of asset health and performance without being anywhere near their machines.
It’s safe to say that maximum availability and productivity of equipment can be ensured by using advanced wireless vibration sensors.
