A petroleum storage depot in Southern England providing essential fuel supplies to various outlets across East Anglia needed some updating of its condition monitoring system; predictive maintenance system specialists, Sensonics Ltd (UK) were called in to update the facilities and to retrofit an improved vibration detection system.
When it was commissioned in 1991, the plant’s main line pump and motor station was provided with just one channel of vibration on the pump
allowing only limited fault detection capability. With throughput on the pumps running at approximately 180m3/hour, any unforeseen breakdown whilst never representing a danger, could have resulted in a long shut down of the plant, a complete cut-off of fuel and a very expensive bill.
The station, situated on a hill top site is exposed and open to the elements and so Sensonics fitted four PZS3 type industrial accelerometers to replace the existing single channel system. Sensonics PZS3 accelerometers are of dual case stainless steel construction and being fully welded are sealed to IP.66/IP.67. and can be installed in minutes allowing for both durability and ease of installation; the instruments fitted were also ATEX approved intrinsically safe, suitable for use in hazardous Classified Zone 1 applications.
To provide optimum machine protection, one accelerometer was mounted on each end of the pump and on each end of the motor, these were
complemented by the existing motor winding temperature measurements. These latest shear-mode accelerometers with an even broader frequency band now operate on the site on a 24hour basis often in harsh environmental conditions. All the Sensonics instruments have a high reliability factor and contain no moving parts, which makes them virtually maintenance free. Sensonics additionally installed an Aegis Modular Machine Condition Monitoring System in the site’s control room. This comprised of MO9601 single channel vibration modules together with MO9605 single channel temperature modules, both fitted with A1 (Danger), A2 (Alert) alarms; the system also incorporated a M09699 display module.
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