Plant Management
Low-cost thermal imaging in plant maintenance
Thermal measurements help detect imminent failures in nearly all types of equipment, from electrical to mechanical, process, electronic and so on. Ken West reports.
Wärmemessungen helfen dabei, drohende Ausfälle in nahezu allen Arten der Ausrüstung, von elektrisch bis mechanisch, im Prozess, in der Elektronik und so weiter, zu erkennen. Ken West berichtet.
Les mesures thermiques aident à détecter les pannes imminentes dans presque toutes les sortes d’équipements, qu’ils soient électriques, mécaniques, électroniques, destinés à la transformation ou autre. Selon Ken West.
T
hermal imaging is gaining an invaluable predictive and diagnostic reputation in plant maintenance and process applications. No longer a
specialist tool, infrared (IR) thermal imagers are affordable for everyday use and operate in a similar way to digital cameras: an LCD display shows the IR image as the user selects the view, focuses, then squeezes the trigger to record the image. As a regular maintenance and
troubleshooting tool, one particularly strong asset of thermal imaging cameras is that they are ‘non-contact’ tools: not only are maintenance personnel at a safe distance from electrical infrastructure and hot or moving machinery, but also there is no need for plant shutdown while personnel carry out measurements.
Fast and predictive Thermal imagers provide very fast, multiple point temperature measurements of a scene. They are suitable for moving targets and machinery, hazardous and inaccessible or distant targets, electrical components, ‘big picture’ evaluations of machinery or surfaces, and also for trending records. Thermal imagers can access components
Thermal measurements help detect
imminent failures in nearly all types of equipment, from electrical to mechanical, process, electronic, and so on. Because thermal inspections are fast, they
can cover more ground and find problems in areas that would typically be ignored. Qualitative analysis of infrared data can
be used as an effective predictive maintenance tool.
Affordable and easy-to-use Today’s industrial maintenance thermal imagers are compact and easy to use with minimal training. Prices are such that a thermal imager is affordable as an everyday maintenance tool, no longer the preserve of an outside specialist. If the user already carries out regular maintenance and troubleshooting, adding thermography (the application of thermal imaging) makes sense. Which units
are critical to performance are already known. A thermal imager
Fig. 1. One of the latest, lightweight Fluke thermal imagers for plant maintenance and troubleshooting technicians - the Fluke Ti105.
will then also be part of the kit when troubleshooting, and during installation of new equipment.
Invisible to our eyes, IR radiation is heat
and units not otherwise measurable, such as ceiling runs. In most cases, the surface temperature at specific points of critical plant assets is a consistent indication of its operating condition.
radiated by or reflected from a material. A thermal imager interprets the radiation by assigning a visible graduated colour to the scene. The colour palette displays hot spots as
white with diminishing temperatures through red-orange-yellow-green-blue-indigo-violet to black being cold. This enables a visible
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