Early Detection of Ship's Gearbox Problems Using Advanced Stresswave Techniques
As part of the implementation phase of a major condition monitoring programme, vibration analysis equipment was deployed by PCMS senior engineers on one of their clients’ ships. By using their remote interrogation and analysis service, PCMS engineers are able to monitor the equipment performance whenever the ships are at sea.
On one occasion, PCMS were able to highlight an over-stress condition of one of the gearbox bearings and recommended that this should be changed during the vessel’s next scheduled docking. This action was duly undertaken, thereby reducing major damage to the engine itself and avoiding potentially serious and costly down-time at sea.
Stress-wave Analysis
Stress-wave analysis is a technique for measuring friction, impacting and dynamic load transfer between moving parts in rotating machinery. Stress waves are very high frequency and, as such, are difficult to detect and evaluate, requiring the elimination of all background noise from other sources.
Filtering out this noise is key to the success of using stress waves to analyse potential gearbox problems, problems which are extremely difficult to identify with the application of traditional techniques.