Development and Implementation of Reliability centered Maintenance using Vibration Analysis: Experiences at Rourkela Steel Plant

摘要

In Steel industry, maintenance cost accounts for 10 - 15% of productioncost. Maintenance affects the target, quality and profitability of theplant. Implementation of modern concept of Condition Based Maintenance canappreciably reduce maintenance costs and enhance reliability of machineperformance and quality of the output.In many steel mills worldwide, failures of critical equipment havefrequently led to loss of production, high maintenance and operation costs.As the capital cost of modern machines is very high, the requirement ofcontinuous and prolonged operation becomes inevitable, to sustain economicoperation. There has been a trend towards adoption of various forms ofCondition Based Maintenance Systems which contribute to better health ofmachines, reduced maintenance costs, efficient use of personnel and improvedsystem efficiencies.When a large number of machines are involved, a majority being rotatingequipment, Vibration Analysis suits ideally the requirement of ConditionMonitoring, inspite of relatively higher initial costs in terms ofinstruments. It is easy to record and transfer data, ensure accuracy of datafor trend analysis and fault diagnosis. Further, its versatility andportability permit effective planning and implementation of monitoringschedules.Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP) has a healthy maintenance practice right from itsinception in 1959. Condition Based Monitoring through Vibration Analysis hasbeen developed and is in use at RSP, since April '93, as a key technique forimplementation of Predictive Maintenance Program. The coverage has grownover three folds from 40 to 140 critical equipment in the last three years.In addition, for the first time in SAIL plants, single plane in-situbalancing was introduced with tangible benefits in terms of preventingunplanned stoppages, man-hours saved on dismantling and re-assembly ofequipment, and savings on cost of components. The number of major breakdownsprevented by timely diagnosis of faults has increased from a mere 5 to 70cases, resulting in substantial financial savings.The paper describes the efforts made during recent years, by Rourkela SteelPlant, Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL), in close association withResearch & Development Centre for Iron and Steel (RDCIS), SAIL, to implementVibration Analysis and related methods as effective Non-Destructive Testingtools to implement Total Productive Maintenance Program in an integratedIron & Steel works. The paper further discusses a few typical case studiesbriefly.