5. The Technical Means of Diagnostics and Balancing.
Question 5.1.
We have heard that there are many types of instruments and
systems for industrial equipment monitoring and diagnostics by vibration and
noise. Who produces and sells such systems in Russia?
(The question was asked on the International Exhibition «ENERGETIKA &
ELECTROTECHNIKA 98»)
The question is answered by
A.V. Barkov. 2 Feb. 1999:
Nowadays in Russia there are many companies that produce the
instruments and systems for measurements and analysis of equipment and for its
condition monitoring and diagnostics. Besides this in Moscow and some other
cities the main manufacturers of such products have their offices. In this
answer we shall discuss only the Russian instruments and systems manufacturers
as their products are much cheaper than the western made with the similar
features.
The most companies that manufacture the state-of-the-art technical means are
located in Moscow. As a rule they are small non-governmental enterprises that
only recently began to manufacture such instruments and systems.
Some companies, such as «ViKont» (Moscow), were established to continue the
development of instruments that were interrupted in large governmental
companies, such as instrument engineering association «Spectr» in Moscow,
because of the lack of finances. While developing the earlier existed projects
these companies began to use new electronic components and produce
state-of-the-art hardware comparatively cheap.
Other companies, such as «L-card» (Moscow), have specialized in producing
circuit boards for PCs that enable to convert the analog signals from different
sensors into digital form and make the digital signal processing of these
signals.
The mentioned companies have high qualified instrument designers with deep
knowledge of microelectronics who use them in new instruments. But as a rule
these companies do not have enough resources to conduct deep investigations in
machine and equipment diagnostics. It limits the possibilities of their software
which mostly duplicate the western made designs in vibro-acoustical monitoring
that is intended to be used by experts in this field of application.
One more group of companies that are dealing with hardware for monitoring and
diagnostics is oriented on updating the standard on-line control systems for
main parameters in different industrial conditions. The updating of these
systems consists firstly in intensive usage of personal computers and in
transferring the measurement part to the work with the vibration transducers.
Such companies are located first of all in the cities where there are large
instrument engineering enterprises. As an example is the company «Dymanica»
(Omsk).
The main peculiarity of such companies’ production is its reliability but large
dimensions, limited signal analysis possibilities and high price.
Two companies stand apart among the Russian state-of-the-art vibroacoustical
machine monitoring and diagnostic means manufacturers. The first one is the
affiliated company of Gasprom «Orgtechdiagnostika» (Moscow). Its main
peculiarity is in large financial resources that enable them to have during the
process of design practically all the analogs of the world leading companies and
take into account all their advantages. Correspondingly, the designs of
«Orgtechdiagnostika» differs from others by its basic researches and quality of
manufacturing but simultaneously their products are very expensive. At the same
time the capabilities of their instruments and systems are very much influenced
by the fact that the analogs that they used for their design were not of the
last generation, but of the beginning of the nineties. So the instruments and
systems that they produce not always have the up-to-date specifications and not
always are flexible enough to be adjusted according to the new achievements in
signal processing. The mentioned limitations apparently became the reasons of
that the products of «Orgtechdiagnostika» is used mainly by the enterprises of
«Gasprom».
The second is our company «VAST, Inc.» (Saint Petersburg). Its peculiarity is in
that for many years its specialists were designing new rotating machines
detailed diagnostics methods without producing the hardware but using the
instruments of other manufacturers, in particular, the western companies. And
only when the specification data of such instruments have not met the
requirements obligatory for realization of new diagnostic methods, necessary to
implement the machine maintenance and repair according their real condition, the
company invited the specialists, including the western ones, to create a new
generation of digital instruments that process complicated real time signal
analysis. These instruments began to be produced in the end of 1997 and to day
they have one of the best specification features. Besides this one more
peculiarity of our system is its intellectual software for rotating machine
automatic diagnostics, that substitutes the experts in typical monitoring and
detailed diagnostics situations.
Naturally in a short answer to this question it is impossible to mention all the
Russian manufacturers of the instruments and systems and its components. It is
especially true concerning the manufacturers of the simplest measuring
instruments and transducers that are used for vibration machine alarm control
and protection. Even more difficult it is to mention all the suppliers of
monitoring and diagnostic systems that can for example construct them of the
products of the mentioned manufacturers in very different combinations or simply
be the dealers of these manufacturers. That is why when you choose the
monitoring or diagnostic means or systems best of all is to look about two main
indications of their class. The first one is the specification features of the
instrument and the signal analyzing speed. The best instruments are those that
conduct complicated analysis in real time. The signature of such instruments is
the presence of special signal processor in it. The lowest price of such
instruments in Russia is about 3.5-4.0 thousand USD. The second indication is
the availability in the software the monitoring and diagnostic programs that are
united with the monitoring program by one user interface and enabling to detect
the most probable defect type at least after it will be detected by the
monitoring system.
