Let us look at an ordinary omnipresent part of Asset Management: bolting and fastening the machinery or structure. This single vital activity turns out to be remarkably neglected with undesirable consequences for reliability. Motion Amplification®, a new technology has the capacity to show machinery and structural movements, and so naturally brings out looseness or unnatural behaviors. Fastening errors seem to be one of the most prevalent occurrences and it is therefore important to look at what we can learn and how the technology can drive improvements and uses of best practices. A variety of problems are shown, such as forgotten difficult to access bolts, rusted/corroded fasteners, improper tension, improper washers, bolt grade or size and custom modifications such as a bunch of small shims. Some of the issues can be attributed to design errors, some to lack of asset information provided, some to installation errors, lack of training and proper tools or a culture of installation and maintenance excellence. Sometimes and improvement push comes with the integration of more advanced tools, for example tools exist where the torque can be properly managed. This requires that many other items come into place, such as the missing information, correct parts, training and cultural to get the job done properly.
Janos Pattantyus is the Sales Manager for Canada at RDI Technologies. He puts his bilingual passion for vibration analysis and solving machinery problems to good use, initiating training and supporting Canadian practitioners of asset health monitoring in Motion Amplification.For over 10 years, Janos was a permanent machinery protection system support specialist, where he excelled in the application and technical realization of alarm/shutdown and online data acquisition systems for large critical rotating equipment. In this role, he would participate in instrumenting hydro turbines, gas turbines, steam turbines, centrifugal and reciprocating compressors, generators, and pumps. Eventually wanting to know more about vibration analysis, Janos ventured into the world of consulting, using CSI technology and others to create predictive maintenance programs using portable and online systems. During these last 10 years, he trained in oil and lubricant analysis, thermography, ultrasound, root cause analysis, electric motors, and gearboxes. And his work took him into most industries, including oil & gas, petrochemical, power generation, food & beverage, pulp & paper, mining & metals, and pharmaceutical.Janos is a certified category IV vibration analyst with a master’s degree in mechanical engineering. He is a licensed engineer in the province of Quebec.
