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Vibration data collection

 

Vibration Route Frequency

How often do you collect vibration data on your equipment?  Is it monthly, quarterly, or even yearly?  Most of the time management will allow data collection frequencies based upon the importance they assign to vibration analysis or available resources at the time.  Management may ask that vibration data be collected every month or even more frequently if the machine has failed recently.  Different companies and managers use different means to determine how often to collect vibration data or any other CM data for that matter.

Assigning arbitrary data collection frequencies (routes) to your equipment may do your reliability efforts a disservice.  The best method is to determine the failure intervals of the failure modes (bearing defects, etc.) in the equipment.  Assign data collection intervals short enough to identify these failures.  For example, a bearing may develop a failure on day one and run for ninety days before it causes the machine to fail.  If the machine is monitored with vibration analysis every ninety days, then your analyst may never identify the bearing failure condition in the machine.  The result is that your machine will most likely fail without anyone being aware of the issue.  If the same machine is monitored monthly with vibration analysis, then the bearing failure condition would most likely be identified with your vibration monitoring program.  This would alert the maintenance department of the issue and allow appropriate repair efforts to be budgeted and scheduled.

Watch our Reliability Matters: What Can I Do? video to learn the benefits of vibration monitoring to keep your equipment running efficiently.

Vibration Data Collection Pitfalls

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, by Trent Phillips