Services to Shipping

Reliable performance of the components in a ship’s drive train is critical to the safety and efficient operation of the vessel. The nature of operation of merchant ships means that equipment environment can be hostile and highly unpredictable, which creates significant barriers to the creation of a land-based time-orientated, maintenance plan.

Maintenance should ‘err’ on the side of caution, as the lack of knowledge about equipment condition leaves ship maintainers and operators exposed to costly failures in service.

At PCMS, therefore, we structure our services to shipping around the philosophy of Predictive Maintenance, which has long been the backbone of the maintenance approach within the defence sector. Predictive maintenance does not eliminate the need for routine maintenance tasks, rather that these are undertaken in accordance with the measured condition of components as opposed to a pre-determined time-based schedule. This approach avoids unnecessary interference, which in itself could lead to reduced component life. Unplanned and corrective tasks are reduced by monitoring condition and analysing trends to help predict failures in advance. Lifetime costs can also be reduced by extending the time period between major overhauls.

PCMS’ strategy is to develop new methods aimed at improving maintenance performance and reducing cost and deploying appropriate tools and technology that can undertake remote monitoring and diagnostics and underpin the Predictive Maintenance approach. Many of the tools we use have been developed with specialist technology partners, each an expert in a particular field. Together, these tools enable PCMS to offer ‘Intelligent Maintenance’ solutions.

Stresswave analysis
One of the key techniques recommended by PCMS for use within the shipping industry is stresswave analysis, a technology with which PCMS specialists are very familiar.

PCMS use a simple cost effective technique based on the analysis of stress waves emitted from gearbox bearings and gearwheels that can detect a developing fault at a very early stage.
 Stress wave analysis technology is a technique for measuring friction, impact and dynamic load transfer between moving parts in rotating machinery. Benefits include:

  • Detection of wear and damage at the earliest stages
  • Predict a point of failure from parameter trending

How can Stresswaves help you?
Stress waves are very high frequency and are as such traditionally difficult to detect and evaluate. To detect them you have to filter out all the background noise from other sources. This filtering out of the other noise is key to the success of using stress waves to analyse
potential gearbox problems. With traditional techniques Gearbox problems can only be detected at a very late stage if at all, often just before failure. By filtering out background noise we are able to detect problems at a very early stage of development, allowing ships superintendents and engineers to better balance the risk of failure with the need to effect a potentially costly repair. Benefits include:

  • Avoidance of Costly Downtime
  • More detailed analysis can detect the source of the problem i.e. geartooth /
bearing problems
  • Filtering out other noise reduces false alarms
  • Simple ship to shore data base transfer