Welcome to our second issue of ORBIT for 2006. In my last note to you back in March, I suggested that we’d be supplementing the condition monitoring content of ORBIT with articles that discussed the broader topic of reliability. As I’m sure you noticed from the cover, we’ve done just that in this issue.
Enterprise Reliability - Changing the Game (1MB PDF)
GE's Larry Covino and MRG's Bob DiStefano team up to discuss how reliability is helping put customers at the top of their game, transforming not just their maintenance practices, but their business results as well.
Case Histories
25 Years of Experience with Online Condition Monitoring at E.ON Benelux (6.9MB PDF)
E.ON Benelux has come a long way in the last 25 years, from relying strictly on OEM recommended maintenance intervals to a heavier reliance on condition-based assessments and technologies to determine when maintenance is required. This article examines their journey and their successes by investigating their strategy, their implementation and their results, supplemented with five case histories.
Online Condition Monitoring Pays Off for Inco Ltd. (939KB PDF)
One of the world's largest producers of nickel, and a leading metals and mining company, Canada's Inco Ltd. discusses the results they've obtained from their investment in Condition Monitoring systems for their critical plant equipment. Two case histories are provided, showing how machinery issues were resolved and the financial benefits realized.
From The Desk Of
Reliability? Yes We Can. (119KB PDF)
Jim Junker, General Manager for Services, talks about GE's recent entry into the field of reliability consulting and implementation and our partnership with MRG, Inc., giving us instant access to over 20 years of multi-industry experience, proven tools and methodologies for enhancing reliability and the ability to uniquely address the global reliability challenges of our customers.
When One Event is One Too Many (146KB PDF)
Jeanne Fallon-Carine, Environmental, Health and Safety leader for our business, underscores our ongoing commitment to safety as we work at customers' sites around the world, and how customers benefit from our excellent EHS track record.
Applications
Oil Analysis 101 - Part 2 of 2 (705KB PDF)
In Part 1 (196KB PDF) of this article, which appeared in the July 2005 issue of ORBIT (Vol. 25 No. 2), National Tribology's Dan Walsh explained the basic technologies and tools used in the lab analysis of oil-based lubricants. In Part 2, he concludes his findings by offering a step-by-step approach to establishing a lubricant Condition Monitoring program in your plant.
Back to Basics
Understanding k/m (491KB PDF)
Mass (m) and stiffness (k) are perhaps the most fundamental concepts in rotor dynamics and machinery diagnostics and are used in everything from rotor balancing to understanding resonances. In this tutorial, long time machinery diagnostics engineer John Winterton reviews the basic concepts and illustrates their usefulness in a case history where excessive axial vibration on a large steam turbine generator proved troublesome.
The Historial Development of k/m (144KB PDF)
In this sidebar article, Dr. Neville Reiger provides a fascinating glimpse into the scientific "heavyweights" that helped pioneer our understanding of the relationship between mass, stiffness and resonant frequency in mechanical structures.
Recip Tips
Cylinder Pressure Transducer Installation Pitfalls (119KB PDF)
Acoustic resonance can occur in the cylinder pressure transducer applications unless careful attention is given to a design that places the so-called Helmholtz resonances well above the operating speed of the machine. This short article by GE's Brian Howard tells readers how to obtain an informative new applications note, detailing this phenomenon and how to avoid it through careful design and installation practices.
Announcements
Oldest Monitor Contest Winner (98KB PDF)
In the December 2005 issue of ORBIT, we invited readers to identify the oldest operating Bently Nevada monitoring system. Read to know who the winner was and how we rewarded them.
