Page 10 - Industrial Technology Extra 7th September 2020

CONDITION MONITORING...

Driving big cost savings on

flood pumps and motors

By installing vibration monitoring and automatic lubricators from Schaeffler
to pumps and motors, one of the company’s Belgian customers has been
able to prevent unplanned downtime of its flood pumping stations

loods are a major challenge for many to decrease their negative impact on agricultural
countries today. Over the last few years, and urban areas. This information can be used by
the UK has suffered badly from a series of storm-water and flood pumping stations to avoid
Fviolent storms that caused widespread the damage that can occur after the flood. One of
flooding – both in terms of coastal areas and river the main issues is the condition monitoring of these
floods. Industry experts predict that due to the pumping stations.
effects of Climate Change, these types of storms are In some cases, these stations are not ready for
likely to continue over the next decade and beyond, an instant response to natural disasters such as
with the economic cost to the UK being as high as floods. In order to prevent unexpected failures of the
£6 billion. drives or the pumps themselves, it is
Despite significant achievements necessary to monitor the condition of
in the UK’s river flood forecasting and the equipment. One method of
early warning systems, there is still a acheiving this is to install condition
need for effective tools and measures, monitoring devices on pumps and
either to prevent the floods or at least motors to provide advanced warnings
of any impending bearing failures. In a
recent example in Belgium,
SmartCheck condition monitoring
devices and CONCEPT2 automatic
lubricators were installed on flood
pumps and motors.
Schaeffler’s Belgian customer
has since seen a range of benefits,
including the prevention of unplanned
downtime to pumping stations,
reduced maintenance costs and
increased plant availability. The
customer is primarily responsible for

September 2020 • INDUSTRIAL TECHNOLOGY EXTRA • p10