Accept that you will sometimes be wrong and do whatever it takes to find out the “as found” condition. This is often difficult to accomplish but it is well worth the effort and in the best circumstances this should be implemented as a normal procedure.

Before bearings, valves and other mechanical parts fail, they usually scream for help. But their piercing wails usually fall on deaf ears because the sound frequencies are far too high for humans to hear. No wonder deteriorating components may go undetected until they break down completely. Now, however, a variety of tools using ultrasonic technology—ultrasound, as it is commonly known—are helping companies in a wide range of industries avoid wasteful replacements or costly breakdowns.

The IR camera is a great tool used in our everyday predictive maintenance endeavors, but it can play tricks on our eyes if we do not investigate beyond what we are observing. Things truly are not always as they seem, here’s an example:

If thermography is new in your plant, the first few inspection cycles may yield a large number of finds. Subsequent inspections should go more smoothly. After about three cycles, reorganize the routes so they are more efficient, and add new routes and equipment into the inspection cycle as necessary. The optimum frequency of inspection will be determined by the needs of the equipment assets. As they age, are heavily loaded or are poorly maintained, inspections may become more frequent.

For a program to be effective it must be accepted by management as well as other maintenance personnel. Getting other maintenance people involved in Infrared Thermography is a good way of gaining acceptance not to mention the fact that, more people scanning equipment will find more problems, more quickly, resulting in payback more quickly for the plant. This paper discusses the approach which I am implementing with varying degrees of success at my client’s plant sites and which could be implemented in plants with existing IR imagers.

Infrared thermography is the science of seeing heat. Thermal imagers
have the ability to produce a visual representation of thermal patterns as heating systems’ components are identified and recorded. Maintenance strategies are then planned and carried out before system breakdowns occur.

Rapid progress in process automation and tightening quality standards result in a growing demand being placed on fault detection and diagnostics (FDD) methods to provide both speed and reliability of motor quality testing. This paper presents the findings of a decade long research and development efforts in the field of experimental modeling technique and its practical applications for the fault detection purposes, first in the fields of aerospace and defense, and now in the context of highvolume electric motor manufacturing. Underlying this patented technology is a set of proprietary algorithms that enable precise tracking of the parameters pertaining to the physical structure of the motor.

In today’s industry, practices that were once acceptable are no longer even tolerated. Environmental concerns and EPA mandates are applying more and more pressure on businesses like the chemical industry to improve the manufacturing processes being used, to the point that not only is a slight drip from a pump seal not acceptable, but in 2004 the MACT will be enacted and only 500 – 1,000 parts per million vapor will be allowed and, eventually, no vapor at all.