Thermal imaging cameras have been widely embraced as an excellent tool for conducting maintenance surveys across various industries, from electric utilities to industrial machinery and facilities maintenance.
You can acquire a lot of valuable data from a detailed thermographic survey, which can then be analysed to reveal the current status of your machinery. But as valuable as these thermal cameras are for helping with your preventative maintenance, they can only display the current status of your machinery, known as condition monitoring.
What Is Condition Monitoring?
Condition monitoring is a common practice for monitoring machinery activity and its health. Monitoring the condition of your valuable assets is vital to ensure it's operating at maximum efficiency. It's also a tremendous assistive tool for planning any maintenance and preventing any breakdowns that would lead to a costly shutdown.
The food industry relies on condition monitoring significantly. Due to the exacting storage requirements of perishable food and the even more stringent measures required for chilled or frozen food, checking the condition of these products regularly is essential. Dairy is a prime example of food condition monitoring. Without constantly monitoring the cool temperature of dairy, a seller won't be able to guarantee that it's suitable for human consumption.
Whilst this can be easily monitored when packaged, it can also be used to monitor the cows on the farm. Thermal cameras can watch farm animals for any temperature increases that could signify illness or injury based inflammation. This use of thermal imaging saves the farmer an immense amount of time when checking the health of his livestock.
Condition monitoring can also be found in electric power stations or wind farms. For example, HV power systems can quickly overheat without due maintenance. Alternatively, unusually cold areas will signify components that are not performing as they should.
Petrochemical plants benefit from condition monitoring also. Our high-end automated thermal cameras can be programmed to alert you to any overheating motor defects, worn pipes or hazardous leaks.
Maintaining a regular schedule of petrochemical plant thermographic surveys is essential for accurately monitoring your machines, but some machinery requires constant condition monitoring with automated inspections.
How Do Thermal Automated Inspections Help?
Thermal imaging for automation is highly embraced in many industries for condition monitoring. This using thermal imaging this way has the added benefit of monitoring production for any anomalies. Naturally, these anomalies are different depending on the industry in question.
An automated thermal camera can notify you of any heat build-up in the electrical or mechanical equipment that shows a component is not working at its best. Leaving your valuable equipment in this state will most likely result in equipment failure. Thanks to the accuracy of our thermal cameras, you can quickly identify the areas that are overheating and prevent them from completely failing.
When an automated thermal camera is installed to monitor your facility, you no longer need to wait for your following maintenance survey to know the state of your equipment. Instead, an alarm will alert you to any machinery that rises above a designated temperature.
Thermal Automation For Electric Utilities
HV Power and electric utilities are places where you'll find condition monitoring provided by thermal imaging. Electrical substations must monitor their plant equipment through automated cameras to ensure that their equipment operates uninterrupted.
If an insulator fails, it can cause a widespread power outage and affect multiple components within the transmission system. Unfortunately, insulators are often installed high up out of reach, which is why a remote survey with a thermal camera is so helpful. Installing an automated thermal camera that observes these insulators will alert you to any overheating that needs immediate maintenance.
Thermal Flare Monitoring
Oil and drilling operations, chemical processing plants and even landfills all have many risks that need mitigating with efficient safety measures, including high-quality automated thermal imaging cameras.
Flare stacks are used in many industries to burn off unwanted waste gasses or relieve building gas pressure during unplanned over-pressuring of plant equipment. In addition, an automated thermal camera is an excellent monitoring tool as it can operate 24/7 and in any weather.
Flaring is a powerful way of limiting harmful emissions, but only if it burns correctly. Therefore, it is a legal requirement that these flame stacks be monitored to ensure that no unburnt hydrocarbons are emitted into the atmosphere. Additionally, methane is not only combustible but is 23 times more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas. An automated thermal imaging camera can be programmed to monitor these flares that are invisible to the eye; if it is not burning, a programmed alarm can alert you to take immediate action.
Landfills require monitoring also for fires igniting. At Thermascan, we provide professional TST fire indoor software compatible with all our Teledyne FLIR A-Series GigE cameras. This bespoke fire detection software is designed to monitor waste storage and landfills thermal temperature for any fire igniting.
Fires igniting in waste storage are a concern due to the hazardous chemicals released should a fire burn. These will be programmed to alert you of any temperature increases. Still, they can also be tied into pre-deployed water cannons activated remotely when the alarm is raised.
Thermal Condition Monitoring Cameras From Thermascan
At Thermascan, we believe that safety is vital in any industry. With the appropriate implementation of cameras with thermal imaging for automation, we are confident that we can assist any company with their condition monitoring and preventative maintenance.
We pride ourselves in our range of high-end thermal imaging cameras across the UK for hire or sale and a selection designed for thermal imaging for automation and other tasks related to condition monitoring.
If you require any thermographic surveys conducted on your premises or have any questions about implementing an autonomous system, please contact us today, and one of our team will answer your questions.