As various rotating machinery throughout the fibreline perform under harsh and demanding environments, it is often difficult to manually retrieve oil samples. Maintaining an adequate surveillance of lubrication properties against harmful effects can prove challenging.
Heikki Kettunen, senior manager, R&D, rolls and workshop services at Valmet, said: “Valmet’s oil monitoring system provides constant remote lube oil condition monitoring visibility through its novel sensoring and data acquisition technology.”
According to Valmet, the damages in rotating equipment bearings are mostly related to insufficient bearing lubrication. Typical failure modes such as bearing vibration and elevated temperature are normally only observed when the failure has already progressed. With Valmet Oil Monitoring, upcoming failures can be foreseen through changes in lubrication oil quality. The solution is said to enable corrective actions before the actual failure arises, reducing unplanned shutdowns and the need for subsequent repairs.
The Valmet Oil Monitoring application was first installed to follow roll bearings oil lubrication in a TwinRoll wash press in a European pulp mill. The application detected contamination in the bearing oil circulation unit. This observation was flagged, and the machine operators were able to react quickly with corresponding maintenance actions.
Valmet Oil Monitoring, together with the specific applications for chip feeders in continuous cooking and TwinRoll presses in pulp washing, form the offering of Valmet’s modular reliability monitoring platform. The platform is intended for fibre processing equipment and was introduced in 2022.