Outright Failures Identified by Thermal Scans

This month we are talking about maintenance and how thermal imaging should be an integral part of your building maintenance program. It's easy to tie in how catastrophic equipment failure can hurt your business. It's also easy how to see if your equipment is running at peak, it can save you money.

However, infrared inspections can save you money in other ways. And in today's economy, who doesn't want to cut costs?

* Reduced inventory of maintenance parts
* Labor cost savings by avoiding serious equipment failures

(downtime for labor personnel while equipment is non-functional)
* Energy savings by sealing building leaks
* Savings from decreased downtime through increased output
* Reduced waste and scrap parts by improving equipment operation
* Safer working conditions (reduced injuries to maintenance and operating personnel)


IR Infrared Services provides top quality thermographic service at a competitive price to commercial and residential end users in North Carolina and South Carolina. For more information, visit www.irinfraredservices.com or follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/thermalimageguy

Baseline Infrared Imagery

Although I strongly believe in scheduling semi-annual or annual infrared thermography scans as part of your maintenance plan, it is helpful to create a baseline scan for all new equipment as well.

What is a baseline scan? A baseline scan provides baseline data for comparision for subsequent infrared scans. It makes it easier and quicker to troubleshoot potential issues and helps spot problems before they become catastrophic. With baseline scan records, trend analysis of motors and bearings can provide an early warning of impending problems.

Your company invests a substantial amount of money into equipment. To get the best return on that investment, it makes sense to keep that equipment at its peak efficiency - and to have the peace of mind to know it is operating that way from the point of installation. Doesn't it make sense to have a baseline scan done of any new equipment?

IR Infrared Services provides top quality thermographic service at a competitive price to commercial and residential end users in North Carolina and South Carolina. For more information, visit www.irinfraredservices.com or follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/thermalimageguy

What is an Arc Flash Event?

One of the scariest and most catastrophic events that can happen in any type of building (but especially in a chemical or manufacturing plant) is an Arc Flash Event. Not only can an arc flash cause enormous amounts of damage to equipment, it can cause serious injury or even death.

An Arc flash (or arc blast) is an electrical explosion resulting from a short circuit through air that flashes over from one exposed live conductor to another conductor or to ground.

Arc flash incidents are common and costly, and the frequency of reported accidents is increasing. Each year, arc flash events cause millions of dollars in equipment damage, injuires and deaths. Often times these injuries are caused by shrapnel from the damaged equipment hurtling through the air at over 700 miles per hour.

Infrared scans are able to spot abnormally high operating temperatures and identify them as Critical faults, giving you and your company the opportunity to fix it at a fraction of the cost of an arc flash event - and more importantly - protect the safety of your team.

IR Infrared Services provides top quality thermographic service at a competitive price to commercial and residential end users in North Carolina and South Carolina. For more information, visit www.irinfraredservices.com or follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/thermalimageguy

What is Predictive Maintenance?

I talk alot about thermal imaging being part of a predictive maintenance plan. So what exactly is predictive maintenance? What makes it different from preventative maintenance? And lastly, which is more cost effective - predictive maintenance or preventative maintenance?

What is Predictive Maintenance?

Predictive maintenance is a way to evaluate your current equipment to determine its condition so you can predict the optimimum time to perform maintenance. The goal is to perform maintenance when maintenance activity is most cost-effective and before the equipment loses performance within a threshold. Most Predictive Maintenance inspections are done while your equipment is in service so your normal system operations aren't disrupted. Thermal imaging scans are an ideal way to do predictive maintenance on your equipment.

Predictive Maintenance is different from preventative maintenance which is usually performed on a set schedule based on usage statistics or time. Preventative maintenance is done regularly whether it is needed or not.

Preventative Maintenance is labor intensive, ineffective in identifying problems that develop between scheduled inspections, and therefore is not as cost-effective as Predictive Maintenance. On the other hand, since Predictive Maintenance inspections are performed while your equipment is in service, you minimize the disruption of normal system operations as well as labor costs, result in substantial cost savings and higher system reliability.

Infrared thermography is used for the predictive maintenance of mechanical, electrical, and building diagnostic systems. Some specific examples include:

• motors


• pumps


• bearings


• compressors


• conveyor idlers


• loose connections


• corrosion


• load imbalances

Implementing an infrared thermography program as part of your predictive maintenance is easily justified by its ROI.

IR Infrared Services provides top quality thermographic service at a competitive price to commercial and residential end users in North Carolina and South Carolina. For more information, visit www.irinfraredservices.com or follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/thermalimageguy

What is Infrared Thermography?

Recently I talked to someone about how thermography could reduce his maintenance costs for his building and identify structural issues before they become expensive problems. During our conversation, I realized how it is still a relatively new service for many so I thought I'd do a series of blogs explaining what infrared thermography is and why you should incorporate an annual scan into your building maintenance plans.

What is Infrared Thermography?

Simply explained, it is the production of non-contact infrared or heat pictures from which temperature measurements can be made.

IR Infrared Services uses a portable infrared imaging system to take pictures of your building and equipment. Those pictures show levels of heat in color. For example:



This equipment looks perfectly normal to
the naked eye, right?





But an infrared picture shows a dangerous
issue that, if left unfixed, could cause
alot of expensive damage.

Thermal images provide visible pictures for quantitive temperature analysis. You can then take corrective action before costly system failures. This is why Infrared (IR) thermography is a valuable tool for predictive maintanence and process monitoring systems.

IR Infrared Services provides top quality thermographic service at a competitive price to commercial and residential end users in North Carolina and South Carolina. For more information, visit www.irinfraredservices.com or follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/thermalimageguy