MACHINE HEALTH MONITORING

 Background

FBD (Fluidized Bed Dryer) is a widely used equipment in the pharmaceutical industry to reduce the moisture content of pharmaceutical granules. In the event of a blower malfunction in an FBD, it may lead to a complete shutdown of the entire system.

Problem Statement

Relying solely on a time-based maintenance strategy is inadequate to prevent unplanned breakdowns in the Fluidized Bed Dryer (FBD) Blower machine. Real-time monitoring, coupled with early fault detection of structural looseness and unbalance, is crucial for enhancing the reliability and availability of the FBD Blower.

Our Solution

Real-time monitoring and early fault detection of structural looseness and unbalance in the Fluidized Bed Dryer (FBD) Blower improved reliability and availability, surpassing the limitations of traditional maintenance strategies.

Within weeks of implementing VIBit, a global pharmaceutical manufacturer reduced crucial equipment downtime in their FBD Blower by 8 hours. This prevented significant loss of productivity, saving lakhs of rupees.

Deployment

• VIBit IoT sensor is installed on the Fluidized Bed Dryer (FBD) Blower at Motor DE and NDE locations. 

• VIBit collects tri-axial vibration and temperature readings every 10 seconds and transmits the data to the iEdge 360 

cloud using the Plant's Wi-Fi and 4G communications.

• The iEdge 360 Platform's machine anomaly detection and 

diagnostics application provides real-time health status of the machine, leveraging AI/ML-based models for early anomaly detection.

The customer success team, in collaboration with subject matter experts, sets alert thresholds, and the VIBit application notifies users of alerts via email.

• Machine operators are also alerted to abnormalities through different LED statuses on the VIBit sensor, providing a visual 

indication of potential issues.

Early detection of structural looseness and imbalance prevented unplanned downtime.

Insights

RMS Acceleration and Velocity (3-direction), overall vibration, and high alerts were detected on the FBD Blower

AI/ML in Action

Fault Type: Structural Looseness, Unbalance 

Diagnostics:

Motor Drive end

Pattern of Structural Looseness fault observed at high amplitude. The synchronous energy at 1x and multiples of running speed increased. Likely the structural Looseness is diagnosed.

Significant high amplitude of the synchronous energy at 1X frequency increased. Likely the Fan unbalance or dust on the Fan blades is diagnosed.

Recommendation:

Motor Drive end

Reinforce the mounting and improve stiffness. Check the looseness of mounting bolts, failed grout or cracks in concrete bases, cracks or other forms weakness in machinery mount, base plates, hold down bolts etc. On earliest opportunity.

Inspect the Fan for unbalance and Fan blades for dust at earliest opportunity.

Fault Type: Structural Looseness, Unbalance 

Inferences

Customer Success and Subject Matter Team Expertise

The team monitored vibrations and detected increased vibrations in the vertical and axial directions, indicating problems with structural looseness and imbalance.

Impact

The customer maintenance team successfully coordinated maintenance work orders and accomplished tasks by taking advantage of early identification of the Structural Looseness & Unbalance problem, which was alerted by the automated diagnostics and recommendations. This allowed them to schedule maintenance during periods when the machine was accessible.

Benefits

Shift unplanned maintenance to planned

Avoided catastrophic machine failure and production losses

Real-time monitoring provides machine health status