In the classic battle of root cause analysis, it often comes down to electrical vs. mechanical with the motor or the pump being the primary suspects. A variety of tools may be utilized to assist in the investigation including electric motor testing, infrared thermography, vibration analysis, ultrasonics and even oil analysis. Although these technologies have their primary uses they can often cross halfway over the “correlation bridge” and offer a look from the other side. As an example, it has become a common approach to use electric motor test equipment like the MCEMAX® or PdMAEYE to evaluate the machine train performance in areas involving pump vanes, fan blades, belts, gears, and fluid flow. Changes in the asset health of these machine train components will affect the current and torque requirements of the motor and provide valuable data analysis tools for the root cause analysis.
To see the MCEMAX® technology used to identify a machine train anomaly on a critical pump visit the PdMA YouTube site at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxjitFVIehI
