Marine vessels start detecting the vibes

While condition monitoring systems have obvious advantages to the manufacturing sector, other industries are now also benefiting from their use.Preventing maintenance problems using condition monitoring systems has obvious advantages to manufacturing plants. However, other sectors, such as the marine industry, are now starting to see the benefits of implementing similar vibration-based detection systems onboard ships.

FAG Industrial Services (F

The basic model is available as a 2-channel and 8-channel version with external multiplexer. All commonly used acceleration, speed and displacement sensors can be connected to the system. Depending on the version used, process quantities such as speed, temperature, torque and pressure can be recorded. The signal measured by the sensor is broken up into its frequency components using Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT), which enables monitoring of amplitudes for previously specified threshold values within very narrow, defined frequency bands, including the triggering of an alarm if these values are exceeded. Therefore, damage can be detected at an early stage by means of frequency-selective monitoring.

F’IS is now supplying the DTECT X1 system to the marine industry via exclusive partner RCM Marine Ltd (www.rcmmarine.com). Based in Irlam, Greater Manchester, RCM Marine and F’IS jointly developed the Voyager vibration monitoring system specifically for marine customers, which include operators of ferries, cruise ships, bulk carriers, container ships and oil tankers.

Voyager is customised to integrate into a ship’s engineering environment. Voyager has already proved such a success with marine customers that the system was recently awarded the much-coveted ‘Seatrade Award for New IT Application for the Maritime Industry’ in 2007.

Larry Rumbol, Director at RCM Marine comments: “In a typical installation, local Voyager monitoring units are linked to a central alarm panel using Ethernet networks. Voyager can be integrated into a ship’s planned maintenance system, providing web-based machinery alerts and web-based management reporting.

A unique feature of Voyager is its real time alerting function. Through an exclusive agreement with Polestar, alarms are sent as small package data via satellite from the vessel and thereby distributed in real time as the client wishes, to a mobile phone, Blackberry or PC platform. Trend data collected from Voyager can be automatically emailed ashore via the ship’s email server, with typical file sizes of less than 200kB. Voyager is also Broadband-ready.”
 
Voyager installation examples to date include the monitoring of turbochargers; gas compressors; inert gas fans; cargo and ballast pumps; LNG vessel steam turbine plant; pump room ventilation fans; main reduction gearboxes; and shaft alternators on medium speed propulsion systems.

“The adoption of predictive maintenance to optimise component life you might think is an old concept,” says Rumbol. “Believe me, on ships it is not. It’s a new concept that people are slowly coming to address. We don’t want to provide people with reams of information; we want to put it in simple terms what exactly is wrong. The user needs to know that this part of a machine, the turbocharger or the bearing for example, has a problem of this or that severity. They can then decide what to do and how critical it is. We’re basically alerting them to the first sniff of a cold.”

F’IS also supplies its FAG Detector series of handheld vibration monitoring devices to RCM Marine. The units can be can be used to collect data quickly and report faults for the majority of auxiliary machinery, without any need for training. Customised by RCM Marine as its ‘Mariner’ system, each unit is tailored to an individual ship so that information can be collected and analysed easily, without the need for specialist knowledge.

Rumbol continues: “Mariner meets marine Class requirements and is designed to enhance predictive maintenance by allowing quick and accurate data collection, easy data transfer and simple presentation of information to ship’s staff. Then, when it’s time for Class Surveyors to review the data in your monitoring programme, Mariner displays the trend history intuitively and clearly.”

Mariner is provided with a dedicated vessel-specific database, leaving engineers free to walk around, monitor auxiliary machinery and download data direct to their PC. It provides intelligent alarm indication and automatic fault diagnosis reporting together with easy-to-access trending logs and graphical analyses.

For more information on F’IS products and services, please visit www.schaeffler.co.uk or telephone the marketing department on 0121 351 3833.