Asset Management / Life Cycle Cost

Piping Vibration – Causes, Limits and Remedies

We are embarking on a voyage of discovery that entails us calling at the following way stations:
Part 1 – Calculate natural frequency of a pipe
Part 2 – Calculate VIV Vortex
Induced Vibration affecting the pipe
Part 3 – Calculate the effect
of flow induced vibration as flow rates change
Part 4 – Determine the severity of the vibration to see if it is acceptable as is or if we need to make modifications.

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Give Your Lubricants a Long and Happy Life

Turn Your Lubricants into “Lubri-cans.” Just like everything else, lubricants have a shelf-life. If you treat them right, this can be anywhere between six months to three years depending on the type. However, lubricants will only reach their max life expectancy if they are stored and cared for properly.

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What is Preventive Maintenance? A Comprehensive Guide

Preventive maintenance is a strategy that helps plan regular and routine maintenance to maximize the longevity of assets, equipment, and buildings. It also helps reduce the chances of unexpected equipment failures, costly unplanned downtimes and reactive maintenance. Businesses implement PM strategies by planning and scheduling maintenance activities based on real-time operational data using a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS).

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fatigue failure

Fatigue Failure 101

What Causes Fatigue Failure? Metal fatigue is caused by repeated cycling of the load. It is a progressive localized damage due to fluctuating stresses and strains on the material. Metal fatigue cracks initiate and propagate in regions where the strain is most severe. The process of fatigue consists of three stages.

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Nondestructive Testing for Protective Coatings: Implementing a Lifetime Corrosion Prevention Program

During the 20th century cheap and abundant energy made corrosion a manageable problem. This era is coming to an end. Soon, industry will find there is less funding available for corrosion prevention after adjusting for rising energy costs. At this time, management will be forced to decide whether to continue with traditional corrosion control practices or change to something new with a greater potential for energy savings. For many, this will be an extremely difficult decision to make.

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preventive maintenance best practices

Checking Best Practices for Preventive Maintenance

Visiting plants in different corners of the world, we often are asked: “What are the current best practices for preventive maintenance (PM)?” We usually answer that we define preventive maintenance using 95 key elements. We also point out, to some people’s dismay, that there is no single silver bullet for improving PM, but rather many combined efforts will be required to eventually yield results. Here are a few key elements that have been extracted from our program of Current Best Practices (CBP) along with test questions and best practice (BP) examples to help you gauge how well your plant practices measure up.

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10-steps-to-improve-preventive-maintenance

How to Improve Your PM Program in 10 Steps

If you currently have a preventive maintenance (PM) program in place and want to improve it, there are 10 steps you can follow to do so. Following these steps will uncover inefficiencies, including over- and under-scheduled PMs, equipment with PMs that don’t need them, and noncritical equipment that is prioritized over critical equipment for preventive maintenance.

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Smartphone Apps for Maintenance

Nowadays most everyone has a powerful computer in their pocket, their phone.  Many of us are using them in maintaining our plants. Whether you are neutral or a devotee of the iPhone or Android devices, I think it’s safe to say we have only just scratched the surface of possibilities for using our smartphones to maintain our plants. Just think about how good it is to always have a great camera in your pocket with pictures viewable instantly. Does anybody remember the hassle of film? Waiting days to find out if an image was captured and how well it looked.

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Who’s doing equipment inspections?

Equipment inspections is key to keeping your production running but many plants don’t tap into all the resources available. IDCON Reliability and Maintenance Management Consultant, Michael Lippig has a simple decision chart that will help you decide what tasks can be done by what roles.

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