How Vibration Monitoring and Preventive Maintenance Increase Efficiency By Modern Pumping Today
In most scenarios, preventive maintenance is a more cost- and time-effective solution to increase
efficiency rather than waiting for it to fail and having to stop operations to repair or replace the broken piece. The latter requires the company to accrue downtime and make expensive repairs, costing the company thousands, if not millions, of dollars. This holds true for all types of pumps.
While there are many different types of pumps, the same principles apply to all of them: pumps are spinning objects that create vibration and are designed to be in balance. Data monitors and receivers can record these micro-movements and put them into a profile to track the vibrations and establish a baseline. Once this profile is complete, it is easy to see when vibrations change. When there are dramatic or small, but consistent, deviations, it is a safe assumption that something along the pipeline is no longer balanced and is in need of a quick repair for operational efficiency and to reduce waste.
IN NEED OF REPAIR
Creating these profiles is especially important in the oil and gas industry, and even more so in the fracking division. SpotSee is working with one fracking company, in particular, to reduce its downtime and increase its productivity through the company’s pumps and valves while fracking.
When the client is preparing to run its fracking system, trucks line up and connect their pumps together in order to move the water and frack sand down the well at a pressure of 8,000 to 10,000 psi. Not surprisingly, the extreme pressure on the valves inside the pumps causes wear and tear quickly and increases the frequency at which they need to be repaired. Without repairs, the pumps begin to leak, creating blowback and waste. Additionally, the repairs become more costly the longer the company waits to take action.
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