Introduction to Condition Monitoring
What is Condition Monitoring and Why Condition Monitoring?
How the need originates?
Process Industries such as Power, Refineries, Food & Beverage, Automotive, etc. need to run continuously to meet the Demand. To run these industries, a variety of equipment are used. Those equipment can range from a Simple Pump to a Large Blower. Some of these equipment also need to run round the clock 24x7. The continuous operation of the equipment leads to Stress, Strain and Fatigue within the equipment.
When left unattended, these stresses within the equipment can lead to equipment failure.
Maintenance and Condition Monitoring
When an equipment is critical to the running of a plant, it is not left unattended. The equipment or machine is looked after by operators, technicians and maintenance professional so that it keeps running safely, smoothly and efficiently.
This process of looking after an equipment is known as Condition Monitoring
What do we mean by looking after an equipment?
When we say looking after an equipment, we mean using any one or more of the following techniques:
- Visual Monitoring
- Performance Monitoring
- Vibration Monitoring
- Wear Particle Monitoring
- Thermal Monitoring
- Corrosion Monitoring
- Current Signature Analysis
- Dissolved Gas Analysis
- Ultrasonic Techniques
- NDT
- In-Situ Metallography
Balancing Resources and Condition Monitoring
It is not always possible or feasible to carry out all of the above techniques.
Available resources - time, money, tools and manpower need to be balanced
To help balance available resources, whilst still maintaining a high standard of safety and operational efficiency, Condition Monitoring is practiced by Categorising it into three ways:
- Breakdown Maintenance - allowing the equipment to run to failure. Method is the cheapest and easiest only when standby for the equipment are available in plenty
- Preventive Maintenance - checking the equipment at a periodic interval. This method appears to consume more resources, but in reality, it has been found to save resources by lowering operational costs by means of reduction of downtime and helping in planning resources
- Predictive Maintenance - this method involves predicting equipment failure and deciding on next maintenance interval. This method appears to consume lesser resources than Preventive Maintance, but needs skilled personnel and right tools to correctly decide the optimum maintenance interval.
So, what should be used?
In a process plant, based on the availability of resources - time, money, tools and manpower; a mixture of Breakdown, Preventive and Predictive Maintenance should be used for Condition Monitoring.
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