tpi Europe TPI 9043 Ultra III 3 Channel Smart Wireless Vibration Analyser Owner’s Manual
- September 17, 2024
- TPI Europe
Table of Contents
HOW TO DETECT
LOW SPEED
BEARING FAULTS
BEFORE THEY BECOME A PROBLEM
TPI 9043 Ultra III 3 Channel Smart Wireless Vibration Analyser
One of the perennial problems faced by production line maintenance engineers
is how to diagnose faults in slow running bearings. Food production lines are
a particular example, where in addition to motors running at relatively high
speeds, there will also be much slower running assets such as conveyors,
mixing vessels, roasters etc.
Low-cost vibration analysers, like the TPI 9080 for example, are designed to
use an accelerometer to pick up vibration from motors, pumps and fans
typically running above 600rpm. The TPI 9080 detects the high frequency
bearing noise or “whine” of a worn bearing.
The problem is at very low run speeds there is virtually no bearing noise. You
might get a few “clicks” from a badly worn bearing but those are likely to be
very low level and infrequent, so you would have trouble picking them up with
a low-cost instrument.
However, there is the alternative of using a relatively inexpensive, high
resolution vibration analyser like the TPI 9043/Ultra III. Basically, by
setting the TPI 9043 to a very high resolution and taking a long enough
reading of say 5 to 10 seconds, it is possible to capture enough bearing
“clicks” to diagnose a “bad” low speed bearing.
“Until now the only realistic way to monitor low-speed bearings was to use
expensive, permanently installed systems” By comparing the readings from known
“good” and “bad” bearings, it’s possible to set some suitable alarm levels.
This allows low-speed bearing faults to be identified well in advance of them
becoming a problem! The time waveform plots shown below show the vibration
signal captured with a 5 second reading for a “good” bearing (upper plot) and
a “bad” bearing (lower plot). The signal spikes produced by the bearing clicks
are more frequent and of higher amplitude for the “bad” bearing. (Note that
the two plots have been auto scaled by the display software). The difference
between the two bearings becomes more apparent though when we look at the
overall average (RMS) vibration readings for both. The TPI 9043/Ultra III
displayed an overall g value of approximately 0.25g for the “bad” bearing,
compared with 0.025g for the “good” bearing, a factor of 10 difference between
the two. This makes setting some alarm levels relatively simple, a good
starting point being perhaps 0.1g for a warning and 0.2g for a critical alert.
The trick is of course to set the TPI 9043/Ultra III to a high resolution and
therefore a longer sampling time. This is where a very powerful feature of the
instrument comes to our aid, in that it can download “routes” of assets to be
monitored. Each measurement point in the “route” is stored with its own
instrument settings, so there is no adjustment of settings required between
readings. The TPI 9043/Ultra III automatically adjusts its settings to those
prechosen for each individual bearing. The benefit is you can measure both
low-speed and high-speed bearings in the same route!
The TPI 9043/Ultra III is available with included CTrend II PC-based trending
and reporting software featuring everything needed to implement a full CBM
strategy, including automatic email notification of alarms and report
generation. Routes and readings can also be transferred to/from C-Trend II PC
software and the TPI 9043/Ultra III via the cloud. This allows service
personnel to be sent routes and return readings over the Internet, no matter
where they are in the world.
TPI EUROPE 01293 530196 | SALES@TPIEUROPE.COM
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