SDT Ultrasound Solutions company News and Trends items

Maintenance and Reliability practitioners dedicate teams to the task but not every organization achieves world-class results. As much as 80% of all bearing failures are attributed to poor lubrication practices including: Using the wrong lubricant Lubricant deterioration Lack of lubricant Too much lubricant Contamination Mixing grease types Using sealed bearings but stil...

“Versatile” is an attribute often used to describe ultrasound technology. Some have even coined it the “Swiss Army Knife” of condition monitoring. Depending on your perception of Swiss army knives, that could be both flattering and condemning at the same time. The knife itself is iconic with Swiss-made quality, while the phrase “Swiss Army Knife”, over time, morphed into...

Lubrication serves a primary purpose, which is to create a thin layer of lubricant between rolling and sliding elements that reduces friction. So, it makes sense that the best way to determine the lubrication requirement of a machine is to monitor friction levels, not time in service. Optimizing lubrication of plant machinery with ultrasound will result in a significant...

But wind turbines are complex assets consisting of both slow and high-speed components which presents unique challenges for condition monitoring technicians. These challenges are overcome with advanced technologies and safety training. One such challenge is the height where data must be collected. The average height of wind turbines in the United States is 280′ (85.3m)....

Reported by Rob Dent CMRP,CRL & Gilles Lanthier The outer race bearing defect was found by the Partnered Ultrasound Team during a routine lubrication route using a LUBExpert Dynamic. SDT Field Services Technicians noticed impacting while listening to the lubrication task they were performing. And after greasing the bearing, its condition did not improve, indicating tha...

Reported by Torki Ibrahim MSc, PMP®,MLA I,MLT II,Ultrasound level I & Khaled Almarwany Torki, a lubrication engineer at a cement manufacturer recently completed his Live Online Level One Ultrasound Certification with SDT Ultrasound Solutions. He’s since been applying his newfound knowledge for his organization. Torki’s work orders used to read something like this “Lubr...

In a conventional steam production plant, 5 to 15% of the steam traps fail every year. When this happens, money and energy is wasted. Malfunctioning steam traps also create back pressure within the steam system, and cause process breakdowns and quality issues during production. In short, defective steam traps lead to unnecessary waste that can be avoided with simple, eas...

The more severe the failure, the longer it takes to restore systems. To predict electrical component failures in all systems, including substations, MCC gear, transformers, etc.; maintenance teams use condition monitoring technologies like ultrasound inspection. The earlier an issue is identified, the more time there is to schedule maintenance. Because it is significant...

Gerdau, based in Brazil, is one of the world’s largest steel producers and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol GNA. Gerdau Ameristeel is the American branch of Gerdau Brazil and has 19 mills across North America. The majority, if not all, of Gerdau’s mills use various predictive technologies to keep electrical outages to a minimum. Skip Young, a certif...

In fact, reliable facilities are safe facilities. Electrical assets can never be managed with a run to failure strategy. Partial Discharge (PD) is an indication of a developing fault in a medium and a high voltage insulation and is widely regarded as the best early warning indicator of the insulation system’s deterioration. A weaker insulation system translates to a high...

As a mechanic in charge of a portion of the mill, safety and reliability are a must for myself, my company, and our customers. Giving our Operations group the best equipment and training possible are key to our success. For years we have outsourced the vibration, oil, and thermal analysis of our predictive maintenance program, and for years we have thought it was accepta...

Locating and eliminating electrical defects in a timely manner helps manufacturers cut down on unplanned downtime and safety risks. Electrical failures can cause short circuits, fires, transformer explosions, and major damage to integral components within a facility. A common electrical fault that is detected using ultrasound is corona discharge. Corona discharge is cause...

Where is partial discharge (PD) located? Reliability managers must remain focused on safeguarding physical and human assets. Employees have the right to arrive in a safe working environment and to return home unharmed. Ultrasonic technology helps detect fault conditions, such as partial discharges, which can lead to dangerous early stage service interruptions. It should ...

A local private school conducts annual maintenance checks on their steam heating system during the Christmas Holidays when the students all go home. Their goal is to ensure the components of their steam heating system are functioning correctly before the students return for the cold season from December to February. Overview This schools steam powered heating system is...

The Yassa-Dibamba heavy fuel oil power plant requires compressed air at two pressure levels: 30 bar for the engine start-up air compressors and 7 bar for the auxiliary instrumentation. To produce the instrumentation air, the plant has 3 air compressors running more than 5 000 hours per year with very short stand-by times. In order to optimize its costs and to guarantee ...

Starting his own company; ‘Final Drive Engineering Services’ in 2014, Adam soon partnered with a respected OEM of hydraulic components. It was here that he developed a passion for steam delivery systems and quickly became the ‘go to guy’ for repair work. In recent years, he has been contracting to a well-known food manufacturing facility where he carries out offline mai...

The need for efficient storage and transportation is a factor driving the oil and gas valves market. From the place of production to the place of consumption, oil and gas must be transported efficiently. Environmental preservation is another aspect that drives this market. Gas and oil can be dangerous if not handled properly, as they are combustible. This is why valves ...

By following the below equation, it can easily be found out if the valve is fit for duty or not. In case a series of similar valves have to be checked, it is possible to check them by comparing measurements as follows: Check that the valve is closed (supposed tight), take a measurement upstream, on the body and downstream of the valve. Create a leak by slightly opening...

Industry uses compressed air for a magnitude of applications. It is so commonly used that most factories require multiple industrial air compressors to meet demand. What is often overlooked is that on top of the compressed air that is demanded for production, there is also a large artificial demand of this resource. An artificial, invisible demand that taxes resources, d...

We know one lubrication mistake can mean hours, even days of unplanned downtime… because we’ve seen it happen. Lubrication related failures are especially difficult to plan for because one wrong move can rapidly deteriorate the condition of a bearing, causing failure within hours of the mistake. With any luck, the necessary parts for repair will be in stock, but that is...

A failed trap generates a huge waste of energy and steam. It can also cause severe damage to the system and a drop in production quality. And yet, steam trap control is often neglected in maintenance programs. A curious paradox… Today, maintenance and production managers are faced with a real challenge. In fact, the objectives for increasing competitiveness often seem c...

My short answer never changes. It involves two readings… One taken few feet upstream of the steam trap to ensure there is flow, and the other reading taken immediately after the steam trap. If the steam trap is operating correctly, you will hear it cycle. Ultrasonically, this means the signal downstream of the steam trap should be silent, followed by intermittent increas...

It has become commonplace that detecting leaks in a compressed air system can pay off! Who has never seen those signs that indicate the presence of a leak in a system? And then? Well, nothing… because there is no proper action plan. For years, losses were identified and ultimately ignored, due to a lack of time, leadership and, above all, communication between department...

Who hasn’t seen those tags indicating the presence of a leak in a system? And then? Well, nothing… because of the lack of a proper action plan. For years, leaks have been detected and finally ignored, due to lack of time, energetic leadership and, above all, lack of communication between departments. This task, properly executed, taking into account “detection and repai...

We know one lubrication mistake can mean hours, even days of unplanned downtime… because we’ve seen it happen. Lubrication related failures are especially difficult to plan for because one wrong move can rapidly deteriorate the condition of a bearing, causing failure within hours of the mistake. With any luck, the necessary parts for repair will be in stock, but that is...

18 pumps under the responsibility of a Condition Monitoring team, demonstrating an almost identical behavior, with identical symptoms… and surely calling for full attention. A user (meaning a friend, a member of the SDT family) asked me to assist. I was happy to join the party. Firstly, I looked at all the Ultrasound data one by one, and all of them looked quite similar ...

Greasing of bearings using ultrasound, often described as best practice, helps us understand how much grease needs to be applied. Ultrasound is a good measure of friction – too little or too much grease in a bearing produces elevated friction levels. Using ultrasound, the right quantity of grease is determined by assessing the levels. SDT LUBExpert ensures that the righ...

Today, we would like to share an experience feedback from a paper mill that has implemented a preventive maintenance program to monitor rotating machines using ultrasound technology. SDT International helped implement this monitoring program by training and coaching the teams in charge of mechanical maintenance reliability. The purpose of this program is to monitor a fle...

The LUBExpert system has allowed the maintenance team to shift away from unreliable calendar-based lubrication to on-condition lubrication with instant feedback to the technician as each bearing is greased. Dryer section felt rolls – previously greased on a time-based schedule delivering 40 grams of grease every 4 weeks before the ultrasound program was implemented. Ul...

Today, predictive maintenance is based on different technologies that maintenance departments can use to assess failure risks, frequency ratio and severity level. But it’s another matter when it comes to selecting the right analysis tools, the right technology and the right indicators for the early detection of a failure on a rotating machine, in particular low-speed ma...

And then? Well, nothing … because of the lack of a proper action plan. And yet … this task, well executed, taking into account “detection and repair” should be an absolute priority when we know that leaks “consume” 30 to 40% of the volume of air produced! These figures speak for themselves, a planned leak localization strategy is essential because it contributes directl...

Because, if it was, you would have been dragged out of your 65th birthday party and taken to a hospital for a hip replacement, since statistics say that hip failures happens from that age on, and if your hip is just fine… bad luck, they will “repair” it anyway. Personally, I somehow prefer it to be done based on REAL CONDITION of MY hip, not statistics and calculations. ...

Industrial gases are used for various industrial and manufacturing purposes. Most commonly, the gases used are oxygen, carbon dioxide, argon, nitrogen, helium, and hydrogen. These industrial gases are used in many different industries such as petrochemicals, power generation, mining, oil and gas, metals, biotechnology, electronics, and aerospace. Their purposes also rang...

Synonymous with antiquated tools and outdated techniques, medieval maintenance departments experience higher than average downtime, less asset availability, unmet production targets, lower asset lifecycle, and safety violations contributing to lost time due to injury, or worse. The word “Medieval” spawns from the Latin “medium aevum” or “Middle Ages”, a time falling betw...

Paul began his career as an NDT technician, where he was Level 2 certified from ASNT (American Society for Non-Destructive Testing) in different fields including Ultrasonic Thickness Testing and Ultrasonic Flaw detection. The following is a dialogue that Paul had with his students during the fourth Live Online Level One (LOLO) Ultrasound Certification Course . Question...

Greasing of bearings using ultrasound, often described as best practice, helps us understand how much grease needs to be applied. Ultrasound is a good measure of friction – too little or too much grease in a bearing produces elevated friction levels. Using ultrasound, the right quantity of grease is determined by assessing the levels.