While all machinery vibrates, monitoring excess vibration in rotating equipment is key to early identification of asset issues. Vibration monitoring devices use accelerometers to measure changes in amplitude, frequency, and intensity of forces that damage rotating equipment. Studying vibration measurements allows teams to discover imbalance, looseness, misalignment, or bearing wear in equipment prior to failure.
Vibration monitoring enhances your maintenance and reliability program by:
Vibration can prematurely wear components, shorten the life of equipment, create noise, and result in safety issues. Imbalance or misalignment in rotating assets may crack or break driveshafts and other components.
Vibration monitors use a color-coded hierarchy, the Fluke Overall Vibration Severity scale (FOVS), to inform teams of vibration intensity. When assets deviate from pre-set parameters, Fluke Connect™ software sends an alarm indicating thresholds have been exceeded.
Capturing changes in surface temperature, along with vibration data, may not precisely identify internal operating temperatures. However, conditional change regarding ambient temperature can be relied upon as a good indicator of impending fault.
Condition monitoring typically leverages remote, wireless sensor technologies, including: