Benefits of Condition Monitoring
Condition monitoring provides a number of benefits for industry, allowing organisations to take preventative action to avoid failure and assess the full lifecycle capacity of a component. This enables operators to manage risk effectively and optimise their maintenance schedules, delivering increased reliability and production output, and helping to eliminate unplanned shutdowns by up to 75% (in a typical plant with proper implementation). This, in turn, reduces the total cost of maintenance and asset management.
Condition Monitoring at TWI
TWI has a dedicated group of highly skilled engineers who use state-of-the-art equipment – such as the Fluke Ti 30 portable thermal imaging camera, the LOT Oriel/Thermal wave imaging Inc system and acoustic emission testing equipment from M/s Physical Acoustics – to undertake a wide range of condition monitoring activities for our Industrial Members.
At TWI, we help companies and organisations manage the life of their structures to facilitate safe and efficient operation. Offering state-of-the-art condition monitoring solutions, we can deliver improved safety and reliability, reduced inspection and maintenance costs, and continuous monitoring processes.
Our approach uses permanently attached sensors, which collect data that enable the analysis of changes in performance or the condition of a machine or structure, providing real-time information on its condition. Technologies we use include acoustic emission, guided wave and vibration analysis.
The output is objective and provides reliable data showing any changes to the structure or component, from which an assessment can be made of the condition monitored asset’s overall present health as well as offering a tool for safely extending its useful life.
We provide condition monitoring support to our Industrial Members in a range of manufacturing, processing, and rotating machinery environments. Because it informs the detection and checking of leaks, cavitation and flow, it is widely used in the oil and gas industry for the management of pressure vessels, storage tanks, pipelines and piping. It can also be applied to aircraft and aging vehicles, and has been implemented by TWI in the rail industry using vibration analysis for train door control systems and wireless assessments for railway condition monitoring. We have also used condition monitoring to evaluate the overall operational condition of a wind turbine's machinery and rotating components, including the generator, gearbox bearings and main shaft.
For more information about our condition monitoring services, please email contactus@twi.co.uk.