Thermographic Monitoring in the Maintenance of Critical Equipment

Give yourself the experience of bcb, 85% of the times that we had a first approach with our clients through the Dept. Purchasing or Supplier Development always redirected us to Maintenance. And with good reason, since this is the quintessential application of Thermography.

If we consult the statistics of the Infrared Training Center, 90% of certified thermographers are maintenance specialists. In their predictive strategies they establish thermographic inspection routines in electrical, mechanical and thermal elements. However, there are equipment and infrastructures that require continuous monitoring and for which it would not be feasible to have an expert with a camera in hand waiting hours and hours until an alarm occurs due to a change in the thermal condition.

Teledyne FLIR,the world’s leading manufacturer of thermal imaging cameras, has an Automation line ideal for 24/7 continuous and online Condition Monitoring. In the Maintenance area, the most used cameras are undoubtedly the AX8, A70, and A700 models.

Electric motors are one of the main applications for the Ax8. We could also mention the inspection of boards, buses and switches.

The FLIR AX8, the smallest and most economical, is mainly used for monitoring electrical systems. Its capabilities are basic, but they can cover a large number of needs if what you want is to solve a specific problem in a piece of equipment that is fixed and that does not have a very complex failure casuistry. One step above we find the A70, much higher in resolution: ideal for making the most of the matrix information offered by thermography (equivalent to more than 300,000 virtual thermocouples placed in a pixel array), and perfect for detecting faults with precision very high space In addition, its sensor is equipped with the ability to detect very high temperatures, which makes it more versatile for applications in other industries that need to combine all these capabilities.

A version of bcbCondition dedicated to the inspection of pots in a steel mill uses 4 FLIR A70 cameras, due to their excellent resolution and measurement range of up to 1000°C

For applications where there is high-value critical equipment, which also works at very high temperatures (up to 2000°C), we find the FLIR A700. This camera incorporates a sensor that is even more precise in temperature than the A70 and with a wider measurement range (from -20 to 2000°C). In addition, this camera has a motorized focus system, which is especially useful when the camera is used on moving targets -or with positions that have variability- such as round inspections that could be done in electrical substations.

In addition, the FlexView lens can be integrated into it, which makes the A700 the only automation thermographic camera that has two fields of view that can be switched via software to offer optical zoom, something invaluable for aiming small elements such as tips. from insulators or remote connections. In substations, the use of a camera like the A700 can ensure fault detection and predictive maintenance of many critical equipment at the same time, keeping substation integrity under control permanently.

The thermograms shown in the bcbCondition screen above have the following in common: they were all taken with the inspection round of the same A700 camera with FlexView on a Pan-Tilt platform.

All of these cameras lead the global landscape in terms of thermography hardware. We, at bcb, are dedicated to keeping up with these teams with our software dedicated to FLIR cameras. One of our main products, bcbCondition, is the one that we focus on the maintenance applications that we have discussed here. This software manages to make the most of the quality of the data provided by FLIR cameras, and has been designed to optimize the coverage of needs, ensure control over the elements that are inspected, and enable complete connectivity with other systems and proprietary applications. of our clients. The combination of FLIR and bcbCondition has proven to be effective in many environments and industries, which encourages us to continue looking for opportunities where we can contribute our long experience integrating systems that secure assets and optimize the activities of companies.

This unbalance condition in the lines of a TSR occurred very unexpectedly and was recorded thanks to the 24/7 monitoring of the bcbCondition