Technology

Turbomachinery services are necessary to prevent expensive disruptions and repairs. At G-TECH, we have just the right tool to help you with conducting timely and remote turbomachinery maintenance, monitoring, and analysis — The TurboStar.

But before we proceed, let's talk about the need for Predictive Maintenance when it comes to turbomachinery, and how you can go about putting a system in place to ensure that you stay on top of issues even before they develop into full-blown disasters. Read on to learn more.

Why the Need for Turbomachinery Services? 

Most machines already require constant monitoring, maintenance, and repair to avoid machine breakdowns. In the case of turbomachinery, this requirement is even more important because turbomachinery is defined by a transfer of energy between a moving fluid and a rotor. This makes the technology especially vulnerable to damage caused by constant friction and wear and tear of rotating parts. 

If not, your machinery will experience inevitable breakdowns and failures. These breakdowns are not simply annoying. They are also costly and a threat to your business, reputation, and commitment to your own high standards. So how do you avoid them? 

You should put in place a system of predictive maintenance that can catch problems before they occur. This involves a process of constantly analyzing, monitoring, and correcting the issues that come up with your turbomachinery. This usually involves vibration and acoustic analyses. Machines aren't able to talk, at least not using human language. 

Instead, they speak through vibrations and acoustics. By carrying out vibration analysis of your turbomachinery, you can monitor its health and take corrective action when necessary. Vibration analysis can range from an experienced engineer listening by ear to the use of smart and complicated analytical devices that can be handheld or remotely controlled. 

However, the overarching principle remains the same: Judging the health of a machine based on the vibrations that it makes. 

What Is Vibration Analysis and Machine Health Monitoring?

Vibration analysis is a cornerstone of machine health monitoring and Predictive Maintenance for both turbomachinery and most other types of machinery. It can be described as the science of measuring and analyzing vibration patterns in machinery to detect faults early and to avoid unplanned machine failures.

Every rotating machine has a vibration signature that is unique to itself, which can be described as its baseline. If there is any deviation from that baseline, it may signal problems, or it could mean: 

• Unbalance
• Misalignment
• Looseness or 
• Bearing defects

Vibration analysis means that your maintenance team can continually monitor criteria such as vibration amplitude and frequency. This allows them to locate issues, such as malfunctioning parts, before damage worsens or before machine failure occurs. There are several direct benefits to this approach, including: 

• Cost savings
• Increased safety 
• Longer machinery life

By identifying faults earlier, you reduce the cost of repairs and avoid jarring disruptions to your production schedules. Such an approach makes much more sense than reacting after a disruption or even a disaster occurs. 

It is called “reactive maintenance,” as opposed to the far more proactive predictive maintenance approach. However, for modern industrial operations with complicated machinery, you require equally sophisticated tools to maintain your turbomachinery. G-TECH Industrial Inc. has developed exactly this tool: The TurboStar. 

TurboStar: A Modern & Comprehensive Vibration Analysis Tool for Turbomachinery

The TurboStar is a PC-based vibration analyzer to help you carry out a full spectrum of turbomachinery analysis to stay on top of the health of your machines and prevent costly breakdowns. The ideal operation is the one that achieves ZERO Downtime. This might seem hard; however, with the proper planning, skills, and tools at your disposal, it is absolutely doable. 

Our vibration analyzer is just the tool required to achieve ZERO Downtime. It comes in handy for application in two areas: namely, 1. Dynamic Balancing and 2. Vibration Online Monitoring . This means it can help correct uneven weight distribution in rotating machine components to reduce vibration, noise, and wear.

It also does so using smart technology, which allows you to carry out analysis and monitoring online from the convenience of your PC. The key features of the TurboStar include:

• Its intuitive and easy-to-use interface
• Its reliable local data storage system
• Its ability to support two independent tachometers

It also provides a comprehensive set of measurement data, including waveform, spectrum, and polar plots, and much more. You'll also appreciate the precautions built in to protect your data. TurboStar's local database storage system means that everything is saved immediately. So, your data remains safe even if your PC shuts down or if the power goes out.

To learn more about how our TurboStar can help you meet that high standard of 100% machine uptime, check out our product page: TurboStar Product Page.