Condition-Based Monitoring for a Construction Aggregate Plant’s Industrial Systems
Date:
9/12/2019 12:00:00 AM
A construction aggregate plant operates
10 high horsepower, secondary crusher drive motors and associated
conveyor belts, producing 600 tons of product per hour. All heavy
equipment requires maintenance, but the aggregate producer’s costs were
greatly magnified anytime necessary maintenance was unplanned and
unscheduled. The product must be supplied to the customers on a tight
schedule to fulfill contracts, avoid penalties and prevent loss of
future business. Furthermore, a sudden failure in one of the drive
motors would cause rock to pile up in unwanted locations, extending
downtime and increasing costs.
Clearly,
preventative maintenance was preferable to unexpected failures. So,
twice each year, the company brought in an outside vendor to attach
sensors to the motors to do vibration studies, measure bearing
temperatures and attempt to assess the health of the motors. But that
was not enough. Unexpected breakdowns continued to occur. The aggregate
producer decided to upgrade to a Condition-Based Monitoring (CBM) sensor
system that could continually monitor the motors in real time, apply
data analytics to detect changes in motor behavior before they developed
into major problems, and alert maintenance staff – via email or text –
anywhere they happened to be.
A
wired sensor network would have been cost prohibitive. An aggregate
plant has numerous heavy vehicles moving around, so any cabling would
have to be protected. Additionally, the plant covers 400 acres and the
cable would have to be trenched to numerous locations. Cable simply was
not an option. The aggregate producer needed a wireless solution.
Advantech installed the Wzzard Mesh Wireless Sensor Platform. First, each motor was equipped with three industry standard sensors: current draw, vibration and temperature. Changes in any of these parameters can be an early indicator of future problems. Each motor was provided with a single Wzzard mesh wireless sensor edge node, with each node capable of connecting up to three sensors. The Wzzard edge nodes then used wireless mesh networking to publish the sensor data to a network gateway. The gateway then sent the data to the monitoring application.
Two additional
Wzzard nodes were also installed to provide data routing support and to
ensure the mesh network was robust enough to provide reliable, five
nines (99.999 percent) uptime and connectivity, even though the
environment included many large metal surfaces.
When sensors are spread out across a wide
area, establishing a wired sensor network may be impractical. At a
quarry site, for example, there is a lot of heavy equipment moving
around so, above ground cabling would be in constant danger. Trenching
the cable would protect it, but trenching costs $15 USD/foot or more for
cabling, conduit and installation. The quarry’s farthest motor is 840
feet from the control center; wiring that single motor would cost
$12,600 with nine more motors to go.
A wireless Wzzard mesh network installation is not only less expensive than running cable to all of the monitoring points in the quarry, it cannot be severed by mobile equipment or digging.
Wzzard Intelligent Sensing Platform
- Wzzard mesh wireless networks cover distances where a network of wired sensors would be cost prohibitive.
- The Wzzard mesh wireless network is an easy retrofit – it works with existing, industry-standard sensors.
- The monitored machines need no data ports – Wzzard edge nodes collect relevant information from external sensors.
- Real-time access to data through an intuitive dashboard.
- Data analytics not only detects failures, it predicts failures.
- Alert levels set to provide real-time text message or email notification of thresholds exceeded.
- Wzzard cuts downtime and related costs.
- Wzzard makes machine condition data available wherever it is useful.
- Wzzard enables automatic alerts on your computer, tablet or smart phone.
Connect Anything, Monitor Everything
Since Wzzard Mesh Wireless Sensor Nodes can connect
virtually any sensor, the aggregate producer also decided to install
level meters in the surge bins. Like the sensors on the motors, these
sensors were connected to Wzzard mesh wireless sensor nodes, which
joined the other intelligent nodes on the mesh network. If the surge
bins were in danger of overflowing, the system would send immediate
alerts to the operator.
- Motor Vibration
- Motor Current Draw
- Motor Temperature
- Node Battery Status
- Surge Bin Level
ADDITIONAL CBM QUARRY APPLICATIONS
- Rock breaker
- Apron feeder to the primary crusher
- Overhead crane Dust collection/suppression system
- Freight elevator Eccentric trolley removal cart
- Service air compressor
- Man-lift elevator
- Sump pumps
- Air cannons
- Air vacuum clean up systems
- Water booster pumps
- Rock grapple
- Service trolleys
- Conveyor belt magnets
- Conveyor gravity take-up service winch
- Conveyor belt metal detectors
- Conveyor belt rip detector
- Belt monitoring systems
- Conveyor belt weigh scales
- Belt feeders
- Vibratory feeders
- Screw feeders
- Lime/cement silos
- Bin ventilators
- Sampling stations
