This article will define a business case for achieving significant rotating equipment maintenance and energy cost reduction at industrial and municipal facilities.
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It required only a couple notes of the haunting soundtrack to signal an imminent shark attack in the movie Jaws. As the theme began to swell, it became obvious that someone was going to “get it.” It would be nice to have a sixth sense that allowed us to hear "warning" music in daily situations. Condition monitoring systems provide a means of sensing when sharks are skulking toward your critical machines.
Balancing is essential for minimizing vibration, increasing bearing life and minimizing downtime and repair costs. Follow the guidelines from these standards to balance centrifugal pumps properly.
Comparing the vibration performance of identical or like machines can be used to detect defects and judge their severity.
Beating occurs when two dynamic excitation sources (forces) are close together in frequency, and a pathway allows the two excitation forces to transfer to each other. The beating effect results because the frequencies are so close to each other that the waveforms alternately reinforce each other at some times and cancel each other at other times. When the vibration from each source adds constructively, the vibration increases. When the vibration adds destructively, the vibration decreases.
Last month we reviewed the pump selection criteria for a closed loop circulation system (Vp-Vf). This month we will take a look at a similar application that adds some elevation to the equation.
Starting can have a significant effect on the life of the winding insulation of an AC motor. For this reason, motor manufacturers often limit the number of starts per hour and may also require a minimum run time and off time between starts. There are two events that occur during across the line starting that can reduce insulation life.
This article explores the use of condition monitoring at the UPM-Kymmene's Wisaforest pulp and paper mill in Finland. Production capacity is 800,000 air dried tons per annum (ADt/a) of pulp and 180,000 ADt/a of kraft and sack papers.
Wireless technology is enabling INEOS Köln GmbH (Cologne, Germany) to detect blocked filters in polyethylene pellet transportation tubes that can lead to production downtime at its plant in Cologne. INEOS produces polyethylene, which is used for a broad range of products including pipes, packages, films and coating. Polyethylene pellets ready for customer use are transferred to the plant's silo store through pneumatic conveying systems. Pellets are entrained in streams of air and effectively "blown" from one location to another. The incoming air is filtered to prevent any pollution of the final product.
Active Front End (AFE) drives use two power sections. An active rectifier is used to minimize the amount of harmonic distortion reflected to the power grid by drawing nearly sinusoidal current from the power grid. Standard 6-pulse rectifiers used in most drives create harmonics (e.g.5th, 7th, etc.) that can generate anywhere from 30 to 100 percent current distortion. The active rectifier used in the AFE drive creates cancelling harmonics that effectively eliminate those that would be created in a standard 6-pulse drive.
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This article will define a business case for achieving significant rotating equipment maintenance and energy cost reduction at industrial and municipal facilities.
The third annual Product Innovation of the Year award was hotly contested again this year. The contest examined products entered into the marketplace between September 1, 2010 and August 31, 2011.
Packaged pump systems are gaining popularity due to their space saving design, simplified installation, single source responsibility and advanced control options with communication ability.
In the power industry, clean water is crucial for a variety of tasks, including extending the service life of turbine seals and protecting spray nozzles and heat transfer equipment. Raw water drawn from lakes, rivers and reservoirs must first be strained to create acceptable clean water for use. The power industry and other industries must continuously strain tens of thousands of gallons of water per minute to remove dirt and debris that can wreak havoc on critical process systems and equipment.
While scheduled downtime is different from unscheduled, both can take away from a company. An effective reliability program, however, will minimize unplanned downtime and maximize scheduled downtime.
For controller-to-controller coordination, wireless Bluetooth is an excellent alternative to Class 3 radios.
When measuring vibration, one of the most important factors in obtaining accurate information involves selecting the proper vibration transducer. Selecting the wrong vibration transducer can yield results that are misleading or, worse, mask a problem.
To explain why the apparent temperature seen through a thermal imager can be significantly different than the actual temperature, we will review our knowledge of physics.
Interpretation of equipment clues can help diagnose problems before failure occurs.
As pump users, we often have to deal with fuzzy concepts, such as: What is low flow? When are vibration levels too high? When is suction specific speed value too high? When is a pump's energy level high?
Columns and Blogs
In this multi-part series, we will investigate several aspects of centrifugal pump efficiency.
First of Five Parts
Since the original publication of this draft standard in the January 2008 issue of Pumps & Systems, I have received feedback, encouragement, numerous questions and criticism. The draft listed three basic levels of repair.
The McGraw-Hill scientific dictionary [5] states that a volute is "a spiral casing for a centrifugal pump... designed so that speed will be converted to pressure."
