COMPREHENSIVE condition monitoring systems can mean the difference between expensive, unplanned downtime waiting on replacement parts, and a planned preventative maintenance schedule with minimal disruption to workflow.
Problems or malfunctions in plant and equipment operation often become apparent through changes in vibration behaviour, unusual temperature patterns or noise emissions.
Reliability and condition monitoring specialists, Schaeffler, have almost 20-years’ experience in this field and primarily use vibration, temperature and acoustic emission diagnosis to detect damage or abnormal wear in machinery at a very early stage, so that these components can be repaired or replaced as part of planned downtime. Costly unscheduled downtime is therefore minimised.
Depending on the type of machine and its importance in the production process, condition monitoring can be carried out by means of either continuous (online) monitoring or regular periodic (offline) monitoring.
Schaeffler condition monitoring and reliability systems manager, Mark Ciechanowicz, said the company has several systems available, ranging from single point to multi-channel surveillance systems utilising multi-parameter sensors.
“Predominantly we measure vibration, but we also monitor other condition monitoring parameters such as acoustic emissions, component temperature and oil and grease condition. We can also accept other process parameters such as speed, load, pressure, etc,” he said.
“We have a Remote Diagnostic Centre (RDC) in Sydney where we measure 300,000 characteristic data points daily throughout Australia and New Zealand, which include assets like wind turbine generators, grinding mills, mobile mining equipment i.e. draglines, shovels and haulage trucks, fixed mining plant equipment, pumps in water sewage treatment plants. We also cover variable speed and ultra-slow applications.”
The Schaeffler diagnostic experts are familiar with all analytical techniques ? ranging from vibration measurements, infra-red thermography to torque analysis and endoscopy inspections – and as a result, they can quickly identify malfunctions and devise appropriate solutions.
Online monitoring options
When monitoring mobile fleets, such as haulage trucks, draglines and shovels, the focus is typically on electric wheel motors, alternators, hoist, drag, swing, propel and crowd sections, and is carried out with dual parameter sensors monitoring both the vibration and temperature of each bearing.
All the data is collected automatically and communicates over the Schaeffler cloud back to the RDC where Schaeffler’s reliability service engineers perform the diagnosis.
Should the 4G wireless signal drop out, the data is retained on the machine’s data logger and will automatically transfer to the Schaeffler cloud once reconnected.
“We provide reports based on machine condition back to the client – that happens on a regular basis, normally monthly, however alarms are checked on a daily basis and any exceptions are reported straight away to the customer,” Mr Ciechanowicz said.
This regularity provides more in-depth knowledge of the normal condition of the machine and deviations can be more easily detected – forewarning mine sites of any components on the brink of failure or parts that could need replacement in the near future.
“In between that comprehensive diagnostic report, we also look at any alarms that have been generated in between the monthly reports and immediately provide any machine conditions that are an exception back to the client, so they are instantly notified if there’s any kind of change in that machine’s condition,” Mr Ciechanowicz said.
“We also go further than that: not only do we detect problems, we can also provide a prognosis as to when the client needs to do something, and what exactly it is that they need to do and what kind of maintenance is required for a particular machine.”
Seamless integration
In addition to offering advice on selecting the right monitoring system, Schaeffler also offers turn-key solutions i.e. installing and implementing monitoring systems.
This not only includes hardware selection but also system configuration and, where necessary, its integration into existing data collection and reporting systems.
“We often install systems on critical equipment to monitor motor drives, gearboxes, trunnion and pinion bearings.” Mr Ciechanowicz said.
“Because the mill bearings are actually rotating at quite a low speed, we’re able to employ techniques such as high-gain accelerometer and acoustic emission sensors for monitoring these slow-speed bearing applications.”
Schaeffler can install systems from new or retrofit to existing infrastructure.
“With both new and retrofitted systems, we set up baseline thresholds and tweak those alarms specifically over time to ensure that we eliminate the risk of any transient alarming that may occur.” Mr Ciechanowicz said.
“We help sites to increase the reliability of their plants which in turn increases the uptime and availability of the machines to produce when they are required to process.”
Invaluable investment
Investment in such monitoring systems often pays for itself in the first year due to the reduced failure costs.
“We’re arming clients with the time to ensure they have the inventory – particularly those components with long lead times – to plan maintenance activities in a proactive manner,” Mr Ciechanowicz said.
He pointed to the example of bucket wheel bearings as one such component where forewarning is particularly advantageous.
“Those large bearings aren’t just sitting around.” he said.
“Especially if they’re a custom bearing and the client doesn’t have one sitting in stock, there’s going to be a lead time and the costs start to escalate because you’ve got transport and replacement costs and mounting downtime costs as well.”
The return on investment from a comprehensive condition and reliability monitoring system is phenomenal.
“We’ve done calculations on a dragline where we measure the hoist, swing, drag and propel sections and the cost wasn’t so much on the gearbox – even though it’s a half a million-dollar gearbox in its own right – it was actually in the cost of the downtime,” Mr Ciechanowicz said.
“If you look at the cost of the downtime, every hour that dragline is down (depending on the commodity prices) it can be quite significant and vary from around $40,000-60,000 per hour.
“If you don’t have a spare gearbox or bearings for the gearbox to replace, you could be looking at days of downtime, so you can see how the production costs quickly outweigh the cost of the replacement part itself.
“In one failure such as this, the client could have paid for the entire condition monitoring system across the whole dragline.
“So, our monitoring systems provide common-sense insurance for the client against this type of unscheduled downtime for all their mining plant and equipment.”
More information:
Schaeffler
02 8977 1010
