This is a case study showing how useful PeakVue detected incorrect grease used on a maintenance grease change, prior to any bearing damage occurring.
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JPS Reliability LTD
Here is another case study, this week is PeakVue – Early Detection case study.
Here is a case study showing how #PeakVue detected Subsurface Hertzian cracks detected on a 110KW Motor on a Variable Speed Drive for a plant critical pump.
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Hello Everyone,
This was to be the final of the five case studies brought to you with the Reliability Training Institute. But, following on from feedback we will have one more case study next week, this will be an extra long project case study!
In this case study we demonstrate vibration analysis of a slow rotational 4 Point Contact Bearing, with a 23RPM Defect. This is to remind us that correct database set up, and Time Waveform Analysis is so important in slow rotational bearings.
These case studies are to support my book ‘Enhanced System Reliability Through Vibration Technology’ and my new role as an RMS Trainer with the RMS Reliability Training Institute.
Many thanks to Dr Jezdimir Knezevic from MIRCE Science for his enlightening discussion (and MIRCE Science) and to Dean and Stuart at RMS for all their support.
This case study and more can also be viewed on the RMS Blog.
Hello Everyone,
Here is the fourth of the five case studies brought to you with the Reliability Training Institute.
In this case study we show that by measuring the correct vibration parameters you can resolve defects in harsh applications, even an inner raceway defect on a vibrating screen. Hopefully, you are finding them of use and helpful.
These case studies are to support my book ‘Enhanced System Reliability Through Vibration Technology’ and my new role as an RMS Trainer with the RMS Reliability Training Institute.
Many thanks to Dr Jezdimir Knezevic from MIRCE Science for his enlightening discussion (and MIRCE Science) and to Dean and Stuart at RMS for all their support.
This case study and more can also be viewed on the RMS Blog.
Hello Everyone,
Here is the third of the five case studies brought to you with the Reliability Training Institute. In this case study we show how vibration analysis detected a hidden failure in a variable frequency drive. Hopefully, you are finding them of use and helpful.
These case studies are to support my book ‘Enhanced System Reliability Through Vibration Technology’ and my role as an RMS Trainer with the RMS Reliability Training Institute.
Many thanks to Dr Jezdimir Knezevic from MIRCE Science for his enlightening discussion (and MIRCE Science) and to Dean and Stuart at RMS for all their support.
This case study and more can be viewed on the RMS Blog.
Hello Everyone,
Here is the second of the five case studies brought to you with the Reliability Training Institute.
These case studies are to support my book ‘Enhanced System Reliability Through Vibration Technology’ and my new role as an RMS Trainer with the RMS Reliability Training Institute.
Many thanks to Dr Jezdimir Knezevic from MIRCE Science for his enlightening discussion (and MIRCE Science) and to Dean and Stuart at RMS for all their support.
This case study and more can be viewed on the RMS Blog.
Hello everyone, I have created short presentation to share some different bearing failures that were detected before function failure. This has been put together for meetings and toolbox talks to promote the benefits of what defects a condition monitoring program can detect. Every bearing here has a story of how it was detected and what actions were/were not put in place to protect the functionability of the system.
This is aimed to highlight (at a high level) to management and production what we can detect if a suitable system is set up correctly.
I am working on another case study presentation that follows up on these and some other cases. In this one it will have the technical testing data (thermal, electrical and vibration) and a full case study also showing the ‘The Cause’ ‘The Mechanism of Failure’ and ‘The Failure Mode’. This will be posted over 5 videos.
Please feel free to share and spread the knowledge
When all else fails, leave the air conditioning, and go examine the operating equipment. Go look, touch, feel, smell and listen to the machinery.
The seasoned Analyst
Online vibration monitoring is a great tool that enables monitoring of a vast number of assets, it helps the analyst when they “can’t see the woods for trees”.
This post is to highlight that for a full assessment of an asset you don’t just sit in your air conditioned office looking at the data on the screen. You must use other technologies and inspection tools to assess the Reliability of the system, the best tool is experience and your human senses.
The SPM online system alarmed on a fan bearing. This fan has a direct drive AC motor to a fan lay shaft with two SKF/Cooper split bearings.
The onsite vibration analyst called for an inspection of the bearing due to mechanical/component looseness and an outer race defect. I was asked to confirm the diagnosis and provide further details.
On review of the data, and the new on demand live data, from the SPM system I concluded that the analyst was correct in the diagnosis of mechanical/component looseness and an outer race defect on the split bearing.
Figure 1 is the SPM online Velocity spectrum from the 1st September, with low overall one order and no harmonics.
Figure 2 is the SPM online Velocity spectrum on the 3rd September, and shows many running speed harmonics indicating a component/mechanical looseness.
Before I issued my comments I decided to “Leave the air conditioning, and go examine the operating equipment. Go look, touch, feel, smell and listen to the machinery”. Within seconds I spotted the issues and using my personal Motion Amplification tool, my finger! I felt and confirmed what my eyes were seeing.
Image 1 is of the drive end (Motor side) split bearing, all good.
Image 2 is of the fan NDE bearing (Fan side). The top cap retaining bolts were coming loose!
This was reported immediately to the on site maintenance team. Maintenance re-secured and torqued the bearing top cap bolts. It was found that both bolts were loose!
Figure 3 is the SPM online Velocity spectrum after the corrective actions, 3rd September. This shows a large reduction in the 1 order harmonics, confirming the loose bolts were the cause of the harmonics. It was also noticed that there were still some higher frequency data evident that was not there prior to the 3rd September.
Further analysis of the SPM HD Envelope spectrum displayed a clear defect signal for the outer raceway. This is a split bearing so you would expect to see some bearing signal but the fan end is a lot higher. This is not surprising giving that the fan end bearing was in operation with a loose top bearing cap!
The data below compares the drive end (motor side) Figure 4 and non-drive end (fan side) Figure 5 SPM HD Envelope spectrum. This confirming that the fan end bearing signal is a lot higher.
This highlights that there is a place for an online monitoring system in some aplications.
In addition to preventing a catastrophic failure of the fan and this having a effect to the profitability of the site, this prevented what could have been a very dangerous safety incident with a fan coming loose at full speed.
For a full assessment of the system please leave the air conditioning, and go examine the operating equipment. Go look, touch, feel, smell and listen to the machinery. Don’t site and rely on one form of data to make a decision that will affect the reliability and probability of the system.
A profitable plant is reliable, safe and a cost-effectively maintained plant.
The Seasoned Analyst
A profitable plant is reliable, safe and a cost-effectively maintained plant.
I often am lucky enough to use different vibration technologies and this post is a great example of how a vibration analysis program can protect the business using the SPM HD Enveloping technique. This post is with thanks to assistance from Dean Whiteside.
As part of a routine vibration data collection program a change in condition was noted at the fan motor vibration levels. Vibration monitoring frequencies were increased to daily as the defect deteriorated. This enabled planning and a controlled change out of the motor.
On inspection of the vibration data, bearing outer raceway (BPFO) damage was diagnosed at the drive end motor bearing. This was clearly evident in the SPM HD Enveloping.
Acceleration Data:
Figure 1 shows the Acceleration RMS trend from the motor drive end (DE) bearing location. This shows the steep increase in the impacting levels with an exponential increase in the final days of monitoring.
Fig1:
SPM HD Enveloping Data:
Figure 2 shows the SPM HD Envelope spectrum from the motor drive end bearing. This technique shows a clear impact at 3.09 Orders that matches the defect frequency for the bearing fitted. There are many harmonics indicating a very impactive signal.
Fig 2:
Summary of vibration:
There is a clear distinct defect in bearing outer raceway, at these levels this would confirm a spalling to the raceway.
Corrective Actions:
Due to the risk of failure, a new motor was sourced and placed on-site encase of instant catastrophic failure. The risks was discussed with production and was deemed too high to the process and a plan was put in place for a controlled stop. But prior to this date there was an unexpected line stop, and as the motor was all prepared on site, the motor was changed during this downtime.
Vibration data after controlled change-out:
Figure 3 are the SPM HD Enveloping spectra from before and after motor change out. The top plot showed the clear bearing damage and now with the replacement motor there are no bearing defect signals present.
Fig 3:
Figure 4 is the Acceleration trend from the motor drive end bearing location. This trend shows the increasing and then the lowest record level with the new motor installed.
Fig 4:
On visual inspection, it was found as expected, a large visible defect in the loadzone of the bearing outer raceway. Motor Drive End Bearing FAG 6316-C3
Image 1 is the drive end bearing sectioned.
Image 1:
Image 2 is the defect located in the loadzone of the outer raceway.
Notice the flat bottom of the spalled area and the “neat” cracks around it. These are cracks that have come to the surface and in time, more material will break away.
Image 2:
Image 3 is the defect located in the loadzone of the outer raceway.
Particle over roll as the bearing comes out of the load zone.
Image 3:
ISO 15243:2004: 5.1.2 Subsurface initiated fatigue. Primary causes of Subsurface initiated fatigue are repeated stress changes and material structural changes. This leads to microcracks under the surface, crack propagation and then spalling.
This bearing was close to catastrophic failure
The bearing is damaged as soon as spalling occurs. Spalling gradually increases and gives rise to noise and vibration levels in the machine. This machine was stopped and repaired before the bearing collapsed. The period from initial spalling to failure depends on the type of machine and its operating conditions.
What is sub surface fatigue? In a rotating bearing, cyclic stress changes occur beneath the contact surfaces of the raceways and rolling elements. Consider the rotating inner ring of a radial bearing with a radial load acting on it. As the ring rotates, one particular point on the raceway enters the load zone and continues through an area to reach a maximum load (stress) before it exits the load zone.
During each revolution, as that one point on the raceway enters and exits the load zone, compressive and shear stresses occur. Depending on the load, temperature and the number of stress cycles over a period of time, there is a build-up of residual stresses that cause the material to change from a randomly oriented grain structure to fracture planes.
In these planes, so-called subsurface microcracks develop beneath the surface at the weakest location, around the zone of maximum shear stress, typically at a depth of 0,1 to 0,5 mm. The depth depends on the load, material, cleanliness, temperature and the microstructure of the steel. The crack finally propagates to the surface and spalling occurs.
This is another example of how vibration technology and knowing system health and risk of failure enables data driven decisions to benefit the business. The motor was replaced when the line was down due to an unplanned shutdown, with no additional downtime occurred.
If this motor had failed without any planning this would have lost product and reduced profit. In addition these actions have protected the customers, supply chain and brand our reputation.
A profitable plant is reliable, safe and a cost-effectively maintained plant
This blog is to remind everyone that ‘this is the way we have allays done it’ doesn’t wash and also how important using the correct lubrication and lubricant cleanliness is!
This share has two questions;
I appreciate the Accelerometer was only technically good for 50g’s but we had a reading of 116.28g’s Peak to Peak. Can you beat that?
We were requested to inspect a fan due to repeat failures of the fan bearings.
This fan process cold air, it is direct driven at 1498RPM and has two 22222 straight bore double row spherical roller bearings.
The fan NDE (Non-drive end / fan end) bearing was set as the fixed located bearing. The DE bearing at the coupling was set as the float bearing.
This fan had been in operation for 17 days.
Data was collected with a 100mV/g Accelerometer with a flat rare earth magnet.
The vibration data indicated that the motor to fan shaft alignment was good and there were no issues with the Velocity imbalance levels.
There was however extremely high Acceleration levels indicating excessive damage to the outer raceway together with an indication of poor lubricant condition.
Figure 1 is the Acceleration Time Waveform from the Fan NDE (Fan end bearing). This shows the very high impacting levels with a -52.59g’s peak to +63.69g’s peak.
Figure 2 is the Autocorrelation of the Acceleration Time Waveform. This shows that all this activity is being generated mostly from the bearing outer raceway.
Figure 3 is the Acceleration Spectrum. This again shows that all this activity is being generated from the bearing outer raceway.
Figure 4 is the PeakVue Acceleration Time waveform. This shows very high general impacting up to 34.9g’s Peak.
Figure 5 is the Autocorrelation of the PeakVue Time Waveform. This shows that all this activity is being generated from the bearing outer raceway.
Figure 6 is the PeakVue Spectrum. This shows that all this activity is being generated from the bearing outer raceway.
Figure 7 is the Velocity Spectrum. This confirms that this is a late stage defect and that this energy is from the bearing outer raceway.
On visual inspection it was found as expected the grease looked oxidised in a poor state and there was a high area of damage to the bearing outer raceway – noticeably on one side of the rollers. Damage to this side of the raceway would have been caused by axial thrust from the fan shaft and motor.
Image 8: This is on removal of the bearing caps. This shows the oxidised poor condition lubricant.
Images 9 to 12: These are further images of the grease condition.
Image 13: This shows the two tracks for the rolling elements on the outer raceway, and that it was highly loaded to one side.
Images 14 and 15: These are close-ups of the defected area.
Researching the lubricant used we know this is not suitable for this application and that it will displace/separate and then oxidise.
But the question is what caused the high thrusting to the one side of the raceway, is it related to what is the fixed and free bearing? Is it true to say that due to the NDE (fan end) being the fixed bearing that expansion from the motor/ fan shaft would load up one side of the raceway?
A profitable plant is reliable, safe and a cost-effectively maintained plant