Product category:
Condition monitoring and vibration analysis
News Release from: Whitelegg Machines | Subject: Baker equipment
Edited by the Processingtalk Editorial
Team on 06 May 2005
Electric motor predictive maintenance: a
US view
'Predictive Maintenance' are the new "buzz" words being uttered by maintenance engineers and plant operators in many industrial, commercial and marine facilities
'Predictive Maintenance' are the new "buzz" words being uttered by maintenance engineers and plant operators in many industrial, commercial and marine facilities Predictive Maintenance Programmes (PMP) include vibration analysis, oil analysis, thermography and static and dynamic motor circuit analysis, performed on a routine basis with an educated diagnosis of the recorded data
This article was originally published on Processingtalk on 28 May 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
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The cost of organising, implementing and maintaining a "good" Predictive Maintenance Programme is almost invariably offset by the savings realised due to early detection of a fault and the effecting of timely repairs.
Suncoast Electric Motor Service is a leading Florida company specialising in electric motor predictive maintenance.
They consider themselves a "full service" electric motor repair shop, tracking and trending motors and related equipment and consistently discovering minor problems before they become major catastrophes.
Further reading
Monitoring and predicting failures of motors
Site electric motor problems result from basic design faults and poor manufacturing quality to problems caused by application and site conditions: most relate to bearing failure or insulation faults
Motor condition awareness and monitoring training
Lectures on aspects of electric motor condition monitoring and potential failure analysis, covering the most common failure modes, from Baker Instrument Company and Whitelegg Machines
Free booklet covers motor condition monitoring
A new guide to preventing electric motor failure and reducing energy costs using modern motor condition monitoring techniques: a new, free management briefing booklet on the topic
By far, their most effective tools are the Baker Instrument Company Motor Performance Monitor (MPM), the Automatic Winding Analyser (AWA) and the D12R with the MTA software.
Out of these the MPM has proven vital in problem solving and motor sizing.
The equipment is state-of-the-art for motor testing and provides unequalled information regarding motor health.
The software is easy to use and comes with full life time support.
Suncoast has become extremely successful in locating electric motor problem areas and in assisting customers in adjusting their equipment to operate properly.
A recent case in point was the Hillsborough County Water Department wastewater treatment plants.
Here the company has worked closely with the maintenance supervisor and other staff over the past 15 years, developing motor profiles and PMP statistics at all seven facilities of the company.
Over this time there has been accumulated an extensive file on the performance of hundreds of motors and related equipment.
A key task has been the studying of the behaviour and operation of the items, whilst trying to improve the running of the sites.
During the past year there have been many instances where use of Baker equipment has shown up motors which were over-sized, undersized, operating with tremendous harmonic distortion or erratic torque and unhealthy loads.
At one large pumping station, there were six internal recycle pumps that are in constant use, moving incoming waste materials to various tanks for treatment.
These are expensive submersible pump/motors and difficult to repair.
They are the first to come in contact with the raw material as it comes into the facility to be accumulated in large storage tanks for initial treatment.
Until the first MPM diagnostic testing, these pumps were being pulled quarterly for cleaning and many of them were failing during their first year of operation.
It was found that the motors had been engineered correctly for clean water and once properly cleaned, the pumps would operate at approximately a 90% load.
However, it was discovered that the tanks contained a large amount of solid material that "clogged" the pumps, no matter how much screening and protection they received.
As a result, the load on the motor would rise rapidly and within a week could reach 125% of full load.
After these tests were recorded, this pump was stopped, removed, inspected and cleaned and then replaced in its tank.
It was immediately re-tested and found to be running at less than 91% load.
After one week, the pump was tested again and it was found that the load had increased to over 105%.
Again, the pump was removed, cleaned, replaced and re-tested, proving this pump will operate at the 91% load level.
Similar findings were recorded for all six pumps and as a result of our data, the pumps are now being cleaned weekly instead of quarterly.
The cost of two mechanics spending two hours weekly cleaning these pumps easily offsets the cost of replacing just one of them.
Baker Equipment is distributed in the UK by Whitelegg Machines.
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