The ALERT diagnostic software performs component level fault analysis and generates a prioritized recommended repair action to mediate each fault. The system will use AI logic to evaluate the machine train as the sum of all component, comparing data in each orthogonal axis for each location at each component in the same manner as a human analyst. Pattern recognition is applied to determine peak relationships to produce a highly accurate fault identification with a severity, from which logical repair actions are generated with a priority.
There are five levels or fault severity with four associated repair action priorities:
- OK - No faults are identified as no vibration exceeds a threshold indicative of generating a fault.
- No repair actions are recommended.
- Slight - Vibration patterns indicate a fault is in its earliest states. This is generally a marker for an analyst to determine rate of change as the fault progresses.
- No repair actions are recommended.
- Moderate - Vibration patterns indicate a fault is present but is still in its early stages. Moderate faults will have cited peaks and vibration patterns such as harmonics and sidebands to validate the identified fault.
- A Desirable repair action is recommended.
- Faults could persist at this level for several months but subject to load, operating states or conditions.
- Maintenance teams should plan for pending repairs by ensuring parts are available.
- Trends should be watched to determine the rate which the fault develops.
- Serious - Vibration patterns indicate a fault is present and demonstrate characteristics that indicate a serious level of severity. Patterns such as high exceedance over baseline or established normal levels, pattern characteristics such as elevated harmonics, sidebands, and haystacks demonstrate a higher importance to the fault or faults.
- An Important repair action is recommended.
- Faults could persist at this level for several weeks but subject to load, operating states or conditions.
- Maintenance teams should have a plan for the repair action(s).
- Root cause or originating faults should be reviewed from the fault trend to ensure any underlying actions are performed as these might be masked as the faults propagate. Example, an underlying imbalance could be masked by significant bearing wear and eventual looseness.
- Extreme - Vibration patterns demonstrate characteristics that warrant the highest level of severity for which a machine could tolerate before catastrophic failure.
- A Mandatory repair action is highly recommended.
- Faults could remain at this level for several days before the machine could fail. Again, how the machine is operated, duty cycles, running speeds, plant conditions, and many other factors determine how long the machine could remain at this or any of the conditional states.
- Maintenance teams should repair the machine immediately or remove from normal operation.
- Trends should be reviewed to understand all underlying conditions to ensure a successful repair.
Multiple Faults
It is very common for a machine to have more than one fault condition. The ExpertALERT diagnostic system will apply logic to provide the most logical repair action, including combining multiple faults into a single action. The highest severity will be used to set repair action priority.
Non-actionable Repairs
The ExpertALERT diagnostic system will often provide recommended actions to monitor a machine for changes in vibration trends. This "action" is mostly intended for route-based programs where the time interval between vibration tests could exceed the rate at which the fault could worsen.
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