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BY
Sheetalnath Mahalungkar, Reliability Engineer, Holcirn (US) Inc
Mike Ingrarn, Integrated Condition Monitoring Entek (Rockwell Automation)
Abstract:
This technical report presents information about the function of online and offline
vibration monitoring. Brief information is presented about the current vibration
monitoring system being used at the Plant. A case study is presented to show
the cost justification analysis of implementing a vibration program. The report
gives a brief comparison between online and offline monitoring showing the
advantages and limitations of both. The investment required for the system
installation as well as cost savings as a result of early prediction of equipment
operation issues are presented.
8 2004 IEEE
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Holcim Overview
During and after the Second World War the cement industry went through a
revolution in machinery design. The limited manpower and increasing demand
for material forced the industry to invent different methods of preventing
downtime of equipment. This resulted in the evolution of Preventive
Maintenance. The equipment was shut down at regular intervals and
overhauled, thus improving the availability of equipment.
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Additional developments have led to Reliability Centered Maintenance
techniques such as designing equipment to have higher reliability and better
maintainability and the use of decision support tools such as root cause failure
analysis, failure mode effect analysis, and expert systems.
Cost of failure
A kiln the size of Portland plant, if shut down due to equipment failure, can cause
losses in the thousands of dollars per hour in lost clinker production. At the same
time it creates strain on the supply chain due to reduced cement production and
in turn inventory. This is the lost cost in production. There is also an added cost
of maintenance due to sudden failure of equipment and unplanned maintenance.
This cost includes material cost and overtime labor cost. The cost for damaged
equipment has to be considered as well.
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Case study for Impeller Failure (estimated numbers)
Annual Cost of the failure mode: $60,000 in lost production for repair provided
the parts are available (6 hour's production).
The plant has a PM applied to this equipment for vibration monitoring. The
vibration analysis is considered to be 80% effective in detecting a worn impeller
prior to failure. The cost for detecting this type of problem through vibration
analysis implementation is $50,000 per year. Considering the failure cost and
the effectiveness of the vibration program $60,000 per failure x 80% effective =
$50,000 in benefit less the cost of $50,000 provides a return of $0. There are
other failure modes as well. The monthly vibration analysis can provide benefits
such as predicting bearing failure or worn gear teeth in a gear box, misalignment,
unbalance etc. If the inspection is considered 50% effective against predicting a
worn bearing (a $20,000 failure) that would equate to $10,000 in additional
benefits.
As it can be observed in the above cost evaluation, the vibration analysis can be
effective against more than one cause of failure, thereby justifying the
investment. The impeller shown in Figure 1 was detected on time and the
scrubber operation was bypassed to keep the kiln running. The study shown is
not only for increasing reliability of equipment but also can create a safe working
environment by detecting a problem earlier that can cause catastrophic failure.
Trained personnel with tools like vibration data collection, Thermography, Oil
Analysis and visual inspection can help prevent unforeseen maintenance and
safety issues.
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Vibration as a tool for predicting failure
For the Holcim Portland Plant with a capacity in excess of 1.6 million tons of
cement production per year, the maintenance cost is approximately 20% of total
production cost. For this cost even one failure if prevented can result in reduced
maintenance cost. This savings can be related to increased production by
preventing downtime and cost saved by preventing unprecedented maintenance
cost. Any increased production quantity and reduced maintenance cost can be
related to the increased profit. Considering this cost savings, investment made
to monitor the equipment health is extremely important. Also, a problem
detected in advance can be fixed with better planning and without disturbing the
production schedule. Condition monitoring has proven to be the best tool to
monitor equipment health for the above reason. Vibration data collection and
analysis is a very useful part of the condition monitoring program. If vibration
analysis is used efficiently and supported by condition monitoring tools like Oil
Analysis, Thermography, and Root Cause Analysis, it can prevent losses to the
manufacturer.
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Figure 2 - Failure mode in equipment with gradually increasing vibration.
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Amplitude Measurements:
The amplitude of the vibration in the machine is a measure of how much motion
is occurring and is proportional to the force acting on the bearings. The amplitude
of the vibration tells us whether there is a problem. The amplitude readings can
be used to trigger the alarm for high vibration and shut the equipment down if the
vibrations exceed the safe limits. The 2 wire transmitter converts the analog
signal to a 4-20 mA signal and transfers it to the PLC. The system acts as a
failure protection system. Even though this system protects the equipment from
permanent failure it is not capable of predicting the cause of high vibration
amplitudes.
Frequency Measurements:
The frequency of the vibration tells at what rate the motion is occurring. More
importantly, based on experience, frequency tells us what force is acting on the
system to cause the vibration. For example, unbalance always occurs at a
frequency equal to the running speed of the machine (IxRPM). The frequency of
the mechanical vibrations are of two types, Synchronous (Multiple of rotation
speed) vibration and asynchronous (non multiple of rotational speed) vibration.
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equipment, and the time to failure from the point the high vibration starts, all
influence the selection of permanently installed online sensors.
The process software organizes and presents information about the process so
plant personnel can use it to improve performance. It delivers data collected by a
sensor and stored in relational databases to the desktop, where managers,
engineers, and operators can apply it in making better decisions. The process
software has process schematics to illustrate current or historical conditions and
trend charts which can be used to study the process changes over time.
mitter
The 2-wire transmitter shown in Figure 4b simplifies the interface between the
vibration transducer and process control computers (programmable logic
controllers PLC, or distributed control systems DCS). The 2 wire transducer
gives a 4-20 mA output signal which is proportional to the overall vibration
amplitude. The output from 2-wire transmitter is connected to the Analog
Inpuffoutput card of the PLCIDCS. There is a loop power supply from the
Analog 110 card that provides isolated capability to drive the two wire transmitter.
The need for a vibration monitor between the sensor and the process control
computer is eliminated by the 2-wire transmitter. The PLC's and the DCS's are
sophisticated systems with the ability to make decisions based on inputs from
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process control equipment. The input amplitude can be compared with set alarm
values. Based on this comparison, when the vibration signal exceeds the alarm
value a task, i.e. shutting down the equipment, can be performed. This helps in
protecting the equipment from permanent damage in the case of high vibration or
temperature.
In the Portland plant, the sensors have helped detect issues like high vibration.
caused by material buildup on fans and have given a warning signal. This has
prompted the plant personnel to stop the equipment and perform inspections,
thereby avoiding critical failure.
The Vibration database allows for the trending of the machinery characteristics
that enable predictive maintenance and condition monitoring. Condition
Monitoring enables users to effectively implement the strategy of performing only
that maintenance which is necessary based on system performance and
indicated operating condition.
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information can be used to dynamically adjust plant operational and maintenance
philosophies and procedures, enhancing informed enterprise production and
maintenance business decisions. Condition monitoring and evaluation integrated
with control and maintenance information enables asset health managers to
respond to diagnosis and prognosis with the most appropriate action.
Figui.e 6 - I=ield d i
Features of this data collector are a large LCD display, online context- sensitive
HELP for all applications, storage capacity via PCMCIA cards and Off-route data
collection. Most hand-held data collection equipment is capable of performing
basic vibration data, including amplitude, frequency, and time waveform. Higher-
end data collectors are capable of functions such as; Two-Plane Balancing,
Frequency Response Function, and Start-up/Coast-down data collection.
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Costs of Walk-around (Offline) Data Collection Equipment
Required data collection equipment includes hand held data collection equipment
(USD 15,000), Transducers, a computer system (USD 2000) for downloading the
data and analysis software to upload the routes and perform analyses on the
collected information (USD 20,000), and miscellaneous parts (USD 5000). Total
cost is approximately USD 42,000.
The advantages of using DCS’s are 1) High-speed data collection and signal
conditioning 2) Vibration analysis algorithms 3) Dynamics identification
algorithms [Nguyen and Nelson].
ONLINE
SURV.
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SURV.
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An online surveillance system unit utilizes the existing Ethernet local area
network (LAN) to transfer information. The machines distributed throughout the
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plant can be monitored at periodic intervals using an online surveillance system.
This saves the time and money for data collection.
Remote machinery diagnosis can be performed with the aid of software for any
equipment in alarm. Information from any channel of a specified online
surveillance unit can be transferred, processed and displayed on a PC
workstation for live-mode monitoring of spectra, time waveforms, trends, spectral
maps and polar plots of data. Internet access makes troubleshooting of
equipment possible from anywhere in the world.
Figure 8 beiow shows a planetary gear box with different locations where the
transducers are installed to monitor the vibration using the surveillance
monitoring system.
* Motor Monltodng
- Reducer Monlforlng
- Rotation measurement
- Motor Current (out olPLC)
* Temperature(out of PLC)
The presentation tool shown in Figure 9 is an excellent tool, which can display
the plant on screen with links that can be utilized as a quick access system to
check the status of different machine components. The data from the offline data
collection and online surveillance system can be viewed in the window.
The Online Surveillance System provides an intuitive visual display of the plant
status at a glance using the presentation tool. The unique alarm notification
enables plant personnel to keep in touch with machinery status through
automatic email notification when alarm thresholds have been exceeded.
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Costs of Online Surveillance System
Personnel:
The maintenance technicians in charge of the data collection get paid according
to their contract, which is part of the maintenance department cost. This is the
major cost of implementing the vibration program. Trained personnel who can
perform vibration data collection as well as simultaneously performing visual
inspections can achieve an excellent level of success by detecting vibration
related issues as well as those issues which cannot be detected by vibration
monitoring. Examples of these issues are wear of belts, pulleys, ducts, chutes
etc.
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Case History #I
This case history is presented to illustrate how the overall vibration can show that
there is a problem, but not indicate the source of the problem. Figure 11 shows
the overall amplitude of vibration recorded from the permanently mounted
pickups as displayed on the process software system in the control room. It was
found that when the fan was operated at full speed, the vibration was excessive
on the fan. So at this point all we knew was the vibration was high for some
reason. It was necessary to collect data with the hand-held data collector to
pinpoint the looseness present in the bearings. This data is shown in Figure 12
and indicates severe looseness. The fan was taken offline and cleaned, which
removed the source of the exciting force for the looseness and the bearings were
scheduled for inspection at the next outage.
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Case History #2
This case history illustrates a loose bearing due to installation errors. The
vibration level was high, but may not have been noticed without a walk-around
data collection system to point out the looseness present. Figure 13 shows the
reading indicating looseness present in the fan bearing.
0.
The bearing was removed and replaced. There appears to be some slight
looseness still present but vibration levels are much lower as seen in Figure 14.
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Conclusion:
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References:
[5]www.holcim.comTM
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