Avoiding Forced Outages from Rotating Equipment Issues

Emerson's Kevin Rossi


The reality for manufacturers and producers is that their plant assets continually degrade over time. Valves wear over time, electrical assets may experience intermittent faults, and rotating equipment imbalances may lead quickly to forced outages.

In this 3-minute YouTube video, Alert Plant Operations When Rotating Equipment Problems Pose a Threat, Emerson’s Kevin Rossi shares ways to equip plant operators with insights to reduce or eliminate forced outages tied to rotating equipment problems issues.

For electrical power, water and wastewater facilities, the Ovation Machinery Health Monitor module can provide early detection capabilities to avoid unplanned downtime.

Kevin notes that 90% of rotating equipment issues are caused by four things: imbalance, misalignment, looseness or mechanical wear. Most of these issues show up in the vibration frequency spectrum at multiples of the turning speed. Traditionally, vibration analysis expertise has been required to diagnose the underlying problem—with mechanical wear being the most difficult to analyze.

With this expertise not available or only sparingly available at many sites, Kevin describes a common requirement for a simple, automated, continuous monitoring solution that alerts operators when issues are developing—without requiring any vibration analysis training.

The Ovation Machinery Health Monitor module provides fully-integrated vibration monitoring on the Ovation distributed control system (DCS) with continuous online monitoring with detailed vibration waveform, spectrum and machinery health parameters. Smart alerts to operators deliver actionable information. PeakVue technology provides earliest detection of problems in rolling element and gearbox applications.

Visit the Power Plant Availability section of Emerson.com for more ways to reduce forced outages and improve overall reliability. You can also connect and interact with other Ovation system experts in the Ovation group in the Emerson Exchange 365 community.

The post Avoiding Forced Outages from Rotating Equipment Issues appeared first on the Emerson Automation Experts blog.