Vibration analysis critical to operations
When reliability and maintenance managers want to minimize equipment downtime, maximize productivity and access real-time data to monitor asset health, they should turn to vibration sensors.
Vibration analysis is critical to a condition-based maintenance program, and a welcome alternative to run-to-fail strategies used by many plants. Vibration analysis makes it possible to measure machine health and find faults without taking machines offline, and to schedule repairs only when needed.
Eliminate the need for vibration experts, save time and money
Before the availability of vibration sensors, reliability and maintenance personnel had four options for proactive maintenance:
- Train employees to become in-house vibration experts.
- Hire a vibration consultant.
- Contract with a third-party service.
- Install a fixed monitoring system
Vibration sensors eliminate the need for vibration experts, helping detect machine faults before breakdowns occur. They monitor critical equipment for a fraction of the cost, providing user-friendly data to help with making maintenance decisions. Personnel can monitor more assets in a scalable, economical way that is less dependent on experts.
How vibration tools have evolved
For the past 30 years, the high-end vibration analyzer and the simplified vibration pen have been the only two options available to maintenance teams. The vibration analyzer produces detailed waveforms, but understanding them has depended on the interpretations of experienced analysts.
While useful in some situations, vibration pens come with a catch-22. They provide a simpler, easy-to-understand number that is burdened by high variation based on measurement conditions, and lack context for mechanics to know if the measured value is good or poor.
Today, there are two newer categories of vibration test tools to help mainstream technicians fill the void between complex vibration analysis and one-dimensional pens. When screening equipment, vibration meters identify which machines are healthy and which have potential problems. Vibration testers automatically diagnose the most common machine faults, measure severity, and provide recommended maintenance actions.
Vibration sensors diagnose faults quickly, efficiently
In today’s competitive business environment, reliability and maintenance managers rely on user-friendliness to analyze their machines. Vibration sensors are the key to quickly and efficiently diagnosing faults, so a machine can return to full capacity before production is lost.
This blog post was drafted in partnership with Fluke.
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