June 2007Maintenance, Test & Measurement, Calibration
Cost-effective vibration pens are being used more and more as an effective inspection tool. These pocket-sized monitors provide maintenance and process personnel with an inspection tool that can quickly locate high and low vibration areas, which are often indications of underlying problems. Maintenance costs can be reduced by focusing efforts on exactly what needs repairing.
This approach to plant monitoring is often the first step in initiating a full predictive maintenance programme. This is a proven way to increase equipment availability and apply the appropriate maintenance strategy for all your plant equipment.
Use of these devices offers benefits that include partial elimination of unplanned equipment shutdowns, extension of periods between scheduled overhauls, reduction in spares inventory, production improvements. They can also be used for checking new and rebuilt equipment.
The full Time range of portable vibration equipment starts with a simple low cost vibration pen, which can be used by process and maintenance personnel, and extends through vibration data collectors to a full data analysis device. Time has been manufacturing non-destructive surface testing equipment for many years and is used extensively worldwide.
Vibration parameters covered by all ranges including the simple pen are acceleration, velocity and displacement. This allows process requirements to be covered by the simplest of units.
In summary, there are many reasons why vibration monitoring should be added to maintenance inspection checklists. Large capital investment is not necessary to start reducing maintenance costs and increasing plant availability.
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