It is unsurprising that in today’s fast moving, competitive world, a large number of manufacturing companies practice elements of predictive condition monitoring as part of their preventative maintenance strategy. Teledyne FLIR, manufacturers of thermal and acoustic cameras, examines this trend.

In the 1980s, huge strides were made in oil monitoring techniques that enabled users to identify specific components within a piece of machinery, as lubricant marketers and original equipment manufacturers sharing lubricant additive composition and component metallurgy respectively. These databases allowed wear trends to be built up over time, and showed exactly where wear was taking place, but also the condition of the lubricant and the amount of active ingredient still present in the product. 

During this time, companies were increasingly adopting alternative strategies to improve the bottom line, with Just In Time (JIT) manufacturing practices becoming commonplace. Unfortunately, many were finding out the hard way, that JIT manufacturing was fine when it worked according to plan, but when breakdowns happened, it was not only production that stopped, but also customer deliveries came to an abrupt halt, with disastrous financial consequences.

Wind the clock forward 40 years and many of the manufacturing strategies introduced back in the 1980s are etched into industry practice and taken for granted. Holding large stocks of raw materials and finished product doesn’t make for good fiscal policy, and holding replacement parts and equipment for production lines is also an expensive practice that must be balanced with the likelihood of component failure.

Condition monitoring is a multi-faceted practice in today’s industrial environment. As well as oil monitoring, vibrational and thermal analysis can reveal a lot about a piece of equipment and its condition. More recently, huge strides in acoustic camera technology have enabled maintenance engineers to obtain accurate data from plant equipment, helping to avoid catastrophic failure.

With Fortune 500 companies still losing hundreds of billions of USD every year due to unscheduled breakdowns, clearly there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to improve production and reduce downtime.

Introducing Teledyne FLIR

For this reason, Teledyne FLIR, a leader in the research and development of thermal and acoustic imaging cameras, have introduced a new range of handheld devices that provide the maintenance engineer with instant, easy to understand data regarding the condition of equipment and plant. A big advantage of these handheld portable devices is that they are non-invasive; in other words monitoring takes place without production being affected or halted. 

Fault-finding with thermal imaging cameras

The latest range of instruments includes the FLIR E96 advanced thermal imaging camera. It represents the top-of-the-range model in the FLIR Exx range and contains several advanced features to make life easier for the user. It has the highest IR resolution of any model, 640 x 480px, and a larger, 1-8x continuous digital zoom. 

The FLIR E96 camera also has a thermal sensitivity of 30mK (at 30°C with a 42° lens) and can measure temperature to an accuracy of ±2°C/2%, supporting the following temperature ranges:

• -20°C to +120°C
• 0°C to +650°C
• 300°C to 1500°C

The UltraMax® Enhancement function can be used to increase the number of measurement points to 1.2 megapixels. The function captures a series of radiometric images, which are combined without compromising data, using an algorithm and FLIR analysis software. This function is particularly useful when inspecting small or distant components as it increases the camera’s distance-to-spot ratio. 

Of course, any engineer will tell you that taking one reading at a single point in time doesn’t really tell you very much about the condition of a component. Trend data is therefore very important, and by taking regular weekly or monthly readings, abnormalities can be identified and explored further. To this end, FLIR have introduced on board software that enables users to establish a set route of inspection. Termed ‘Route Creator’, it allows an experienced engineer who is familiar with the manufacturing process to load the route into the camera and then people with less experience can simply follow the instructions on the camera to carry out a full inspection on a regular basis, allowing experienced personnel to conduct other duties. 

‘Route Creator’ also allows users to add reference images to a survey, so thermographers can always see the original thermogram to match their current images precisely, which is hugely important for the analysis of thermal images when trending.

However, the FLIR E96 is just one of a vast range of thermal imaging cameras from FLIR. There are cameras to suit every application and every budget.

A new generation of acoustic cameras

It is not only in thermography where huge advancements have been made. Condition monitoring using acoustic techniques is now increasing commonplace in industry. The techniques can be utilised to assess the condition of moving parts, as components such as bearings, gears, pumps and motors emit very specific frequencies of sound as they operate. Abnormalities in those sounds can indicate mechanical problems that need addressing. Acoustic cameras can also be used to detect leaks from gaseous systems. Most industrial facilities will have compressed air lines running around site to operate presses or pneumatically operated machinery. A fortune is wasted every year by compressed air escaping through leaks in centralised systems. As the compressor compensates for these leaks, it uses additional electricity, resulting in higher energy bills and a detrimental carbon footprint for the company. The latest handheld acoustic camera from FLIR is the FLIR Si2-LD. 

Following hard on the success of its predecessor, the Si124, the latest model can detect leaks down to 0.0032 litres per minute at a distance of 2.5 metres. Even at a distance of 10 metres the sensitivity is an impressive 0.05 litres per minute. Difficult to reach areas of a production plant are often dark or dimply lit. For this reason, the FLIR Si2 comes complete with two extremely powerful LED lights that illuminate the area, allowing specific gas lines to be identified and analysed.

These are not the only benefits the new camera brings to the party: the operator can view the results on a sharper, brighter five-inch 1280 x 720 screen which brings alive the images captured by the 12MP camera with its 8x zoom lens.

A key feature of the FLIR Si2 is the camera’s ability to not only detect the gas but to quantify the leakage rate and calculate the economic penalty. Termed ‘Industrial Gas Quantification’, the incorporated software can calculate financial losses for a variety of gaseous systems including ammonia, nitrogen, helium, hydrogen, argon, carbon dioxide and compressed air.

To out more about the extensive range of thermal and acoustic imaging cameras from FLIR, visit their website.

www.flir.co.uk