An Innovative Solution Using Eddy Current Probes for Wear Measurement on Huge Slewing Bearings

摘要

Predictive maintenance plays a key role to avoid catastrophic failures on critical equipment. Nowadays there are several well known techniques to diagnose bearings status during their service life. Nevertheless, there are special cases where these techniques do not drive to plausible results due to operating conditions therefore other tools have to be developed in order to monitor bearing condition and know its actual state.Regarding this topic and its critical role in the steelmaking process, a measurement system was developed by using Eddy current probes to monitor raceways wear on a three row roller bearing from the ladle turret which works under high dynamic loads and at very low revolutions per minute. Measurements carried out with this device confer higher quality information than previous techniques employed and allowed to understand equipment wear process.Consecutive measurements in addition to complementary information allow to make precise decisions about the continuity in service of this critical equipment.