At the installation of a new 150 gal/min centrifugal pump driven by a 125 HP motor, high vibration levels were found immediately upon first start. After several days of alignment checks, pump teardowns, bearing inspections, motor uncoupled runs and vendor technical support, no solution was found. The plant maintenance manager asked the company’s vibration analyst to take readings to troubleshoot the problem. After measuring extremely high vibration levels, resonance was suspected and was found at the motor support structure due to inadequate mounting design for the new installation.

There are three major types of tools for finding bearing defects using vibration techniques. Which of the tools should you chose for inspections of bearings? The best solution is often a combination of two or three of the tools, but it depends very much on how much rotating equipment you have in your plant, the criticality of that equipment, the speed of your rotating equipment, and how perceptive your organization is to training. A short description of the three techniques follows.

A number of changes are occurring in the Condition Based Maintenance (CBM) market and in the realm of communications, Internet and database technologies that are resulting in the adoption of Internet based monitoring programs. The following paper will describe the technologies involved as well as the current market climate that is driving this change. This paper will focus on vibration analysis in particular, however, the forces involved are just as applicable to other CBM technologies and Maintenance planning packages.

Examples of failure analysis are almost everywhere. Reduced wear and failure of machine components are a common occurrence, whether it is a minor maintenance failure or a disaster of national significance, anyone can learn from analyzing mistakes.

Carbon Graphite is probably the best seal face you can use in most of your water and chemical applications. Its corrosion resistance and natural lubricity provides two of the features we need in a good seal face material. The question sometimes comes up about how to insert the carbon into the mechanical seal. Should it be captured into some type of a metal holder or would you be better off using a “monolithic” or solid version?

When maintenance is allowed to interact with the plant and production Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM), a prosperous relationship for both parties will often ensue. This OEM partnership results in first-hand information for maintenance to set up its maintenance approach, and valuable operational and design feedback for the OEM. There are seven main circumstances in which maintenance will interact or communicate with an OEM and form an OEM partnership.

Maintainability can be defined as the ease in time and resources of retaining equipment in or restoring it to a specified operational condition. It directly affects the bottom line because it can impact operations, downtime, maintenance costs, and safety. Maintainability is an important aspect of any system’s lifecycle, but process plant engineers typically give it little direct consideration. This is primarily the result of a short-term view of capital project costs that fails to consider lifecycle costs and downstream activities.