Industrial Steel Site – Vibration Monitoring

A major industrial manufacturer required a solution to constantly monitor vibration in key rotating machines. Timely detection of impending failure was essential so repair/replacement could be enacted during scheduled shutdown.

Challenge
The Vibration sensor was not to have any power or communications wiring. The factory was not suitable for coverage by wifi and the client did not want to use cellular. The client required spectral data, velocity data and temperature. Velocity and temperature data was required every 15min. When training the analytics the spectral data was required 1 hour. Spectral coverage from 10Hz to 10000Hz was required. 10Hz resolution was desired for the 10000Hz spectral data, 1 Hz resolution was desired for 1000Hz data. Sending the large amount of spectral data over LoRaWAN was a particular challenge.

Solution
In partnership with Downer EDI a solution was developed that involved a bespoke battery powered LoRaWAN node that interfaced with the vibration sensor, undertook spectral and other analysis, and transmitted the data to the server. Great care was required to overcome the bandwidth and reliability constraints of LoRaWAN. The resulting system guarantees delivery of all spectral data while avoiding overloading the system. Scalar data such as the velocity and temperature is sent directly to the customer for alerting purposes. This data together with the spectral data is sent to Downer EDI who undertake advanced analytics to monitor ongoing equipment health.

Benefits
The system has shown that LoRaWAN has excellent performance in a factory performance. This has led to other LoRaWAN sensor deployments.
Constantly monitoring the vibration spectra allows a detailed equipment characteristic signature to be developed. Deviations from this signature indicate possible failure or maintenance requirement (eg a re-alignment).
Constant visibility of the velocity and temperature give the customer immediate indication of impending failure or other issues.

ClientIndustrial SiteServicesIndustrial Monitoring SystemYear2020