Industrial maintenance encompasses a wide range of different expertise. Even today, old, deeply rooted attitudes and practices can be seen in the way things are done, putting a strain on the company’s finances and safety. Vibration measurement has been a proven, effective, and cost-efficient method for monitoring the condition of machinery for decades. Previously, the method was used where production downtime caused the greatest losses or posed a safety risk. This was because measurements required equipment that was expensive and there were few skilled professionals available.
Today, however, vibration measurement of machinery is possible for all SMEs. The need for measurements can be assessed in the simplest way by identifying from the production process those machines that, if they break down, would cause production to stop. Such a machine is a so-called critical asset that must remain operational. From there, you can calculate how much direct (lost production time, delays, time spent on the work, etc.) and indirect costs (expedited ordering/storage of spare parts, etc.) are incurred. Quite often, the calculation ends with the realization that it would be nice to know in advance how the downtime could have been avoided.
Although vibration measurement has been used successfully for decades, we still hear comments suggesting that vibration measurement does not work, or that faults can be identified just as effectively by ear. So, let’s take a real-life example of this circulating air fan, which we monitored as part of a customer’s measurement round. The first indication of an incipient bearing failure in the fan was detected in March 2019, when the fan began to be monitored more closely. The image shows the high-frequency spectrum from different measurements up until the repair, which took place in July 2021.
Without going into further detail, this is an example of how early vibration measurements can detect an incipient failure and identify faults well in advance. In this case, the incipient fault was detected 1.5 years in advance, and finding the fault early made it possible to procure spare parts at the right time, and the repair could be carried out during normal scheduled maintenance.
