Monitoring the condition of gear teeth using vibration measurements is often challenging. Especially multi-stage gearboxes with a low output rotational speed can cause significant difficulties even for an experienced vibration analyst. Often, incipient bearing failures and especially gear damage go undetected.
Nome Oy has been carrying out visual inspections of gearboxes for 15 years for hundreds of different customers, and we have noticed that visual condition inspections are often the best way to detect incipient damage in gearboxes. With regular visual inspections, wear and the progression of damage can be monitored regularly in much the same way as trending in vibration measurements. Often, for example, based on tooth contact patterns and the effectiveness of lubrication, an expert can identify phenomena that may lead to damage at a later stage.
Visual inspections are typically carried out during shutdowns, and well-prepared inspections can, depending on the equipment, cover even several dozen units in a day. Typically, the customer recovers the costs of the inspections very quickly when faults are detected early and maintenance can be planned in advance. The delivery times for gearbox transmission components are typically long, and an unexpected equipment failure can, in the worst case, result in weeks of production downtime.
Visual condition inspections of gearboxes should be included in the preventive maintenance plans of all larger production facilities, and it is often cost-effective to use an expert. Professionally prepared reports both document the detected deviations with detailed images and provide the customer with clear instructions on how critical the detected damage is and how and when maintenance should be carried out.
(the image above shows a piece of a gear from one of our customers’ gearboxes that was found during our inspection)
We provide borescope inspections as a service, but if you want to carry out the inspections yourself, we sell borescopes for professional use.
