Reliability Engineering: How to avoid asset-account losses

Industrial Maintenance Reliability Engineering is a relatively recent function and incorporates important technological advances to contribute to the competitiveness of the industry where it is applied, adding value to the business.

In her extensive role, she has several important roles:

• Improving the availability and productive capacity of critical equipment;
• Apply analytical technologies to improve reliability;
• Obtain and record improvements in maintenance activities;
• Establishing proactive maintenance plans that minimize use and cost of corrective maintenance;
• Maximize preventive and predictive maintenance benefits;
• Increase the life cycle of the assets.

Originating in the decade of 60 in the aerospace and military sectors, the reliability engineering encountered a fertile field in Brazilian industrial maintenance where sectors of petrochemical, energy, mining, paper and cellulose are becoming references in establishing models of Data analyses to get the best return of the industrial parks installed. The industrial Internet of Things- IIoT – It will quickly add new technologies and methods to increase reliability engineering effectiveness.

Definition of reliability, mantenabilidade and availability

Reliability: The ability of an item, or a system (active), to perform a required function under specified conditions during a given time interval. Usually expressed by the MTBF indicator, i.e. the average time between failures.

Availability: It is a function of reliability and Mantenabilidade. The ability of an item to be able to perform a certain function, during a given time interval.

Mantenabilidade: It is a measure of the ease and speed with which a system or equipment can be restored to the operational state after a failure. Greater Mantenabilidade implies in reduced repair times, so usually expressed by the MTTR indicator, i.e. the average time for repair.

Reliability and risk Management

Risk management is an important part of the asset management process. Its purpose is to understand the cause, probability and consequences of adverse events and make it acceptable, or not, the risks associated with these events. The criticality of an asset is defined by its importance (value) and vulnerability to the organization, in the event of failure or non-performance of its expected function.

The benchmark in risk management is the norm ABNT ISO 31000 – 2009 Risk Management – principles and guidelines.

Maintenance expenses in risk management, i.e. the monitoring of the condition of machinery and process control, etc., must be directly related to the likelihood of failure to occur and the severity of the consequences of these failures.

The condition monitoring is a systematic data collection and evaluation process to identify changes in performance or condition of an asset system, or its components, so that proactive correction actions can be economically planned to maintain the Reliability.

If data availability can be a challenge in maintenance management and its risks, to the Exraman, from a six-month history of reliable information it is already possible to make calculations for sufficient application of reliability engineering.

Predictive maintenance is critical for reliability

There are several predictive techniques that incorporated into the proactive maintenance strategy, will contribute significantly to the reliability, availability and mantenabilidade of industrial machinery. Among the predictive techniques are:

• Vibration analysis: One of the oldest methods of prediction in the industry that allows the detection of potential failures such as unbalancing, misalignment, shaft-feathering, wear in gears and bearing, poor machine fixation or internal components, abrasion, slacks, wear on bearings, electrical problems, among others.
• Oil Analysis: Used to detect wear in movable parts in machinery and the presence of contaminants. There are four types of oil analysis: physico-chemical analysis; contamination analysis; Spectrometry and ferrography.

industrial equipment design

Ferrography: The quantification and analysis of the morphology of the wear particles (filings), found in samples of lubricants are determined, among others, the types of wear, contaminants, the performance of lubricant.

Thermography: Non-destructive technique for measuring the temperature and observation of the heat distribution from infrared radiation. seeks to identify flaws in electrical equipment and systems, static and dynamic mechanical equipment.

Ultrasound: method whereby internal discontinuities are detected by the mode of propagation of sound waves through a component of machinery.

• Daily Temporal Series statistical analysis of temperature and acceleration: The use of dataloggers with temperature sensors and acceleration allows you to know the behavioral signature of a machine, identifying your tendency to health or failure.

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