A Global Solution Provider with

Patented Mechanical Predictive

WHY CHOOSE US
 INDUSTRY GAP: LACK OF SCALABLE MECHANICAL
PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS
20% of breakdown 5% of breakdown
• Hydraulics • Thermal
• Pressure • Temperature
• Temperature • Thermal Mapping
Standard IoT Standard IoT
• Flow Rate • Thermal Flux
(sensors + wireless (sensors + wireless
• Contamination transmission) transmission)
• Density

70% of breakdown 5% of breakdown

• Mechanical • Electrical
• Wear • Electronics Life
• Deterioration Very high frequency data • Power surge
• Backlash Difficult to decipher signal from noise • Current Standard IoT
Bandwidth limitations
• Increase in clearances Storage limitations
• Voltage (sensors + wireless
• Vibrations • Power factor transmission)
Standard IoT does not work :-/
• Acoustics • Energy Efficiency
Technology &
 IDE: DIGITIZE ANY EQUIPMENT IN UNDER 1 MINUTE

Installs on any machine within seconds Immediate feedback through visual Monitor remotely and wirelessly, to
1 through a magnetic connection. 2 fault-detecting indicators. 3 mirror notifications and record data.
 IMPORTANCE OF CHEMICAL INDUSTRY

✔The Chemical industry is one of the fastest-

growing industries, which contributes to about 13% of
the national GDP.

✔More than 130 Lakh workforce is employed in the

chemical industry.

✔The industry avails more than 70,000 products which are

obtained by chemically processing raw materials and
converting them into industrial as well as consumer
products. It is the only industry that develops new
products for human lives.

✔The contribution of researchers, scientists, chemists, and

chemical engineers has revolutionized this industry.
 MMAINTENANCE IN CHEMICAL INDUSTRY

✔Customized process-specific equipment is designed to work continuously but

forced to new standby/on duty cycles to achieve production targets.

✔ As unique equipment are used in the plant, spare part delivery

times tend to be time consuming.

✔ To maintain required atmospheric temperature and pressure, plants are

poorly ventilated. The confined space makes access to equipment difficult,
hence remote monitoring is advantageous.

✔Sometimes maintenance of equipment is mandatory during actual production

process.

✔Chemical industries are normally sensitive to production stoppages. Due to

long production chains in the lines, breakdowns have a major negative
impact.

✔Blowers are used in production equipment to clean acids and residues

obtained in production of chemicals. High pressure in blower can contaminate
chemicals, causing fatal accidents.

✔Certain chemical processes form harmful intermediatory by-products. These if

not disposed of can cause fatal accidents and hazards for the workforce.
 INDUSTRIAL DATA ENABLER (IDE)
PREDICTIVE MAINTENANCE SOLUTION
 TYPICAL PROCESSES IN A CHEMICAL PLANT

✔ A chemical plant typically conducts the processes as

shown in the pie chart.

✔ Depending on the finished product and the application,

the order of the processing may differ.

✔ Every process in a chemical plant demands safety of

the workforce as well as the equipment, due to the
involvement of chemicals, extreme operating
conditions and cohesive nature.

✔ Every chemical process prioritizes accuracy, purity of

chemicals, and maintenance of equipment.

✔ Each process is sensitive to production stoppage and

involves large volume of ingredients, power usage as
well as human workforce.

✔ Every process is well-planned and effectively

monitored to optimize the production goal.
 REFINING (RAW MATERIAL EXTRACTION)

✔Refining is the first process in most of the chemical plants and mandatory in Food,
Pharmaceutical, and Petrochemical industry.

✔A refinery is a plant in which crude oil is transformed and refined into useful products such
as petroleum naphtha, gasoline, diesel fuel, asphalt base, heating oil, kerosene, LPG, jet
fuel, and fuel oils.

✔90% of refineries perform Predictive Maintenance (cleaning heat exchangers, servicing and
maintenance of exhaust fans).

✔Breakdown in a refinery invites at least 21 days of production loss and repairs and spares
amounting to USD 350,000.

✔Generally, Extractors with different types of rollers (Cylindrical, Spherical, Taper Rollers)
are used to extract one constituent from a solid or liquid by using a liquid solvent.

✔Bearings are monitored for typical defects (Imbalance, misalignment, and looseness).

✔Ores are normally crushed into finely ground tailings and the target minerals are extracted
using crushers (powered by motors).

✔Sometimes Smelting, a process of applying heat to ores to extract a base metal is used.
Motor-driven heaters or fan heaters are used in this process.
 CHEMICAL INJECTION

✔Chemical injection systems are used in process applications, including

production processes, (produced) water treatment and hydrate
control in pipelines and wells.

✔The assembly is also commonly used in production facilities in the oil

& gas industry.

✔The main function of the equipment is to inject a precise and

accurate amount of chemicals into a system with the required back
pressure, either continuously or intermittently.

✔The equipment comprises of injection pumps or tubes powered by

motors. The breakdown of a single tube or pump can cost up to
$1M/day.

✔The shutting down of the system negatively affects the production

flow % and/or process completion.

✔80% of the chemicals injected are hazardous to health.

 FILTRATION

Polluted water, impure (less concentrated) chemicals damage the equipment (pipes,
pumps, and seals) and hence filtration is essential.

Typically filtering media like filter papers, filter-bags, filter-drums, sieves, belt filters,
rotary vacuum filters, filter presses and pressure (vacuum) filters are used.

Filtering can be a continuous or batch process. In a continuous process, filter bags,

filter drums, rotary vacuum filters are used.

Filter–bags powered by motor measure the concentration of the pure air in the plant.

Filter-drums can be single-chambered or multi-chambered. The drum is axially

connected to a central pipe. As the crucial process of slurry feeding, initial dewatering,
cake washing, final dewatering, and cake discharge all take place in one revolution of
the drum, real-time monitoring of the drum is vital.

Vibrations on the sieves are monitored to ensure the size of granules in the solidified
chemicals. As the size of the granules increases, vibrations decrease.
 FILTRATION

Belt filters are used for dewatering of sludge and slurry and wastewater treatment.

A rotary drum filter is designed for the separation of solids from liquids using pressure
or partial vacuum. Compressors are generally monitored as they are used to generate
vacuum.

The filter presses are operated by compressing several filter plates together through a
tube down the center of the plates. For maximum filtrate recovery, the air is blown at
high pressures through the filter press with the help of a blower or exhaust fan. Filter
presses are used in the chemical manufacturing, pharmaceutical, and oil industries.

Filter presses have the potential to be used in a batch or continuously.

Vacuum filters operate continuously. contain a conveyor belt to move filter media from a
roll through the machine. The belt is usually powered by a motor and needs monitoring as
it is usually an automatic process and the user needs only replace the roll of filter media
to continue the process.
 COOLING TOWERS

Cooling towers are specialized heat exchangers that cool down water heated up by industrial equipment and
processes. In a chemical plant they are huge (at least 6 feet tall and 330ft in diameters) making them difficult
to monitor.

Catastrophic failure of a cooling tower can bring serious consequences to plant business operations, such as
failure of other equipment, safety hazards, downtime, lost production revenue, expensive repairs, and
health issues.

Common causes of failure in cooling tower components can often be linked to either the misalignment or
imbalance of components (motor (60%), the gearbox (30%), the fan (2%), others (8%)).

The failures of a motor can be caused by motor imbalance, rotor bar defects, output shaft alignment, bearing
defects, and improper bolting to foundations.

Because of the force applied to bearings in a cooling tower, defects often progress quickly and lead to
friction, bearing damage, and gearbox failure.

The structure of a cooling tower makes collecting vibration data on the gearbox difficult and dangerous
without permanently installed vibration sensors.

Gearbox failure causes include the result of stress that the gearbox experiences from being in the airflow of
the cooling tower, misalignment of the gear with the motor, added stress to the gear teeth, and bearing
failures.
 COOLING TOWERS

Fan failures can be the result of unbalanced fan blades or changes or

errors in blade pitch.

The impeller often has holes in the blades to remove condensation.

These can become filled with water, causing imbalance.

Other causes of increased imbalance are a crack, bent shaft, or

missing shaft keyway.

Imbalance can be aggravated by resonance.

Most cooling tower fans run at a speed somewhere between 90 and

300 revolutions per minute (rpm) while motors for cooling towers
generally run at speeds around 1,500 to 1,800 rpm.
 BLENDING

Blending is the process of thoroughly combining different materials to

produce a homogenous product.

Generally, pharmaceutical, plastic, mineral and food industries rely

heavily on mixing and blending technology.

Blending is a process that can be carried out numerous times within a

manufacturing process when new excipients need to be added to
the blend.

Blending is done to achieve certain characteristics in an end product

such as adjusting consistency or smoothing texture.

Rotary blender, Octagonal blenders, V-type blenders, Mass blenders,

Double cone blender (seen in the picture) , Vertical blender etc are
used as blending equipment.
 BLENDING

Depending on the size, a Rotary blender can blend mix of 100 to

80,000 litres. It has rotating nozzles which need to be monitored. The
blender costs Rs. 20,000/- per litre.

Octagonal blenders is a low speed blender used to blend powders in

granular form.

The central shaft of the V type blender is to be monitored as it

provides continuous motion to blend the ingredients. (Shown in the
figure)

Mass blenders rotate at a uniform speed Cone shaped blenders have a

manual rotating facility to rotate the shaft of the blender. Nowadays
robots are used to move the shaft to avoid overloading and ensure
emergency stoppage.

A double cone blender has low maintenance, costs Rs. 1 Lakhs per kg
and has the capability of blending dry powders. It has stainless steel
blades governed by the motor that moves the blades.
 DRYING

Drying is a mass transfer process consisting of the removal of water or

another solvent by evaporation.

Generally drying is done through hot air, drying in vacuum drums,

natural drying and critical drying.

Rotary dryers, drum dryers, kiln dryers, flash dryers, tunnel dryers,
fluid-bed dryers, spray dryers, tray dryers are the various types of
dryers used in chemical industries.

Tray dryers are hot chambers with fans that blow hot air. The moist
air is extracted and replaced by a pipe with hot air, used to dry the
ingredients poured in the tray. If the fans are not monitored the
proportion of moist air in the chamber increases causing the decay of
the ingredients.

Rotary dryers are cylindrical and huge (9 ft diameter and 45 feet in

length). The feed rate, the speed of rotation or agitation, the volume
of heated air or gases, and their temperature are so regulated that the
solid is dried just before discharge. The motors powering the dryers
require monitoring.
 WHY CONDITION MONITORING IN
CHEMICAL PLANT IS ESSENTIAL ?
The failure of industrial plant and equipment can have serious consequences on
the production, safety of the workforce as well as the infrastructure of the
plant.

25% of the piping failures, 14% of breakdown of reactors and storage tanks,
10% Leakages issues of process vessels and about 51% of the equipment failure
contribute to the shutdown of the chemical plant. Hence monitoring the
equipment is crucial.

Blowers are used in production process to clean the acids and residues obtained
in the manufacturing of chemicals. High pressure of the blower can cause
excessive contamination and fluttering of chemicals and explosive reactions
causing fatal accidents.

Heavy materials like Mercury, Nickel, Cobalt get accumulated in the pipes
blocking and corroding the pipes and pumps. Hence, they need to be
monitored.

Potential emission of the toxic gas Hydrogen Sulphide is a serious concern in a

waste water treatment plant. Extraction of these fumes with an exhaust Fan
which operates 24 X 7 requires monitoring to ensure safety at workplace.
 WHY CONDITION MONITORING IN
CHEMICAL PLANT IS ESSENTIAL ?
Pump overhauls may occur on a fixed schedule or as a result of specific breakdown.

Condition monitoring of an equipment sequentially ensures the streamlining of a chemical process. Multiple chemical processes
safeguard operation of the Chemical plant. However, Sometimes equipment are over-maintained.
HOW DOES IDE WORK?
 CASE STUDY
MONITORING FD FAN IN A COOLING TOWER PRESERVES
THE CIRCULATION OF COOLING WATER; AND SAVES USD 17 THOUSAND
THE NEED
per
Refining of petroleum cannot take place without cooling towers. day.
The loss of cooling water circulation within a refinery can lead to
unstable and dangerous operating conditions requiring an immediate shut down of processing units. The efficiency and production rate
of a cooling tower is heavily dependent upon the efficiency of the fan and the fan drive system. An efficient and reliable fan drive system
is required to maintain a relatively high cooling efficiency and prevent interruptions in production. Hence monitoring the fan to ensure
its efficient working subsequently resulting in coherent purification of petroleum is extremely essential.

IDE DEPLOYMENT
The main function of the large FD fan is to provide ambient air. Drive systems are used to drive and rotate the fans. The fan is enclosed
within a fan cylinder that is located on the fan deck of the cooling tower. IDE was installed on the fan bearing to monitor its operation. At
the instance of installation, vibrations on the bearing and acoustics were captured and under normal operating conditions threshold
limits for vibrations and noise were set. Any deviation from the threshold generated an alarm and also sent a notification in the form of
SMS and email to registered authorities.

IDE OUTCOME
After 45 days, the IDE detected a rise in the vibrations. The trend was analyzed. Subsequently, alarms were generated and notification
was sent to the registered maintenance team through SMS and emails.
The notification invoked a physical inspection of the fan.

The duty cycle required of the fan drive system in a cooling tower environment was extreme due to intense humidity and corrosive
water treatment chemicals. These chemicals were noticed in the form of fine depositions on the blades resulting in unbalance.
 CASE STUDY
MONITORING FD FAN IN A COOLING TOWER PRESERVES
THE CIRCULATION OF COOLING WATER; AND SAVES USD 17 THOUSAND
per day. A remedial action of cleaning the deposition
balanced the fan and the vibrations
Rise in vibrations normalized.

Had the rise in vibrations being ignored,

the unbalance could have gradually
resulted in jamming the blades and
sequentially shutdown of the fan.

Consequently, the fan drive system a

associated with it could have been a
adversely affected halting the operation
of the cooling tower. This could have
Normalized
stopped the refining process causing a
vibrations
loss of USD 17 Thousand per day.
 INFINITE UPTIME, INC.
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Berkeley, CA - 94704 USA
contact@infinite-uptime.co
m Ph: +1-510-978-1150

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Office 5B, 5th floor, Vasundhara
Space, Nagras Road, Aundh, Pune
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Ph: +91-8956734745

INFINITE UPTIME, INC.

Let’s 3rd Floor,Building 1, No.501,

Nanhu Avenue, LiangXi District, WuXi,
China
contact@infinite-uptime.co

Connect m Ph: +86 159 01 516 180