Hi Guys,
whether any organisation having alignment schelude job in plant .

Good question!

I think for big rotating equipment, you may have "acculign" included during the design & manufacture to detect misalignment while machine running.

But I have not seen any alignment schedule exists because misalignment will be detected from vibration monitoring route which you may already have.

However, hot alignment is done after cold alignment and after machine running.

Is it true misalignment the enemy no. 1 to CBM?
http://www.maintenanceresources.com/ReferenceLibrary/Alignment/WhyShaft.htm

We do a 6 monthly alignment check on our pumps as part of of our normal PM program.
It pays off, and it is not expensive to do.

So you have to stop the pumps, right in order to do the alignment? To coincide with your preferred duty/standby concept of 90/10?

How many % of pumps will need realignment within each 6 months? Just want to gauge how serious the problem.

Do you use laser alignment or dial gauge for the 6 monthly alignment check? to reduce alignment time.

Do you have acculign for your big rotating eqpt because cannot shutdown single equipment for production?

We have a regular PM program running for 9 years, which include changing oil, checking for looseness and checking alignment all done with dial indicators.

We don't overhaul pumps on a time basis, only when needed.

When experts visited our plant for vibration training, they were impressed by the overall alignment condition of our pumps.

We don't stop pumps to do alignment, we stop them for preventive maintenance. We run 7x24, thus we don't stop production.

We recently have aquired a laser alignment kit, but the most important thing :a good foundation in alignment is already in place

The laser can speed things up, but without it, we wouldn't be pulling hairs

Ok, how do you do hot alignment for compressors, turbines ect without stopping them?

Satisfactory overall alignment condition - out of the pumps in question, how many percentage will be realigned within 6 months? 50%, 10%?

quote:

how do you do hot alignment for compressors, turbines ect without stopping them

Josh have you ever witnessed an alignment job?

About the numbers, we don't care, we know it pays off. The mechanics know which are the "troublemakers/pumps" and they strive for "0 thou", they take pride in aligning.

Of couse I know. But during your PM route including alignment, the bulk of the pumps need alignment or just a samll portion?

Have you considered using the acculign for hot alignment?

quote:

acculign is for ON-LINE MONITORING OF COUPLING ALIGNMENT

which comes in the area of turbo machinery.
In that case, things that are hanging under a wing come to my mind.

If for every pump, I have to purchase permanent mounted sensors, calibrate sensors, tie it to a DCS, PLC, or whatever monitoring hardware or software, train people reading the thing and not come BS with stories of emergency shutdown, because the computer said so...

Since we do not have "rocket science" equipment, we do not have an "astronomic" budget

Because you do 6 monthly alignment check during your PM, so I would like to know how many need realignment because one article says alignment is enemy no. 1 to CBM.

I didn't suggest to purchase acculign for every pump but for big turbomachinery. It's not rocket science but if we are not familiar with things, tend to think it's complicated.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Josh,

Big turbomachinery rotates at several thousands rpm, has close tolerances and operate above their critical speeds (resonance), are largely employed in the aerospace industry, and in power generation. In most cases these things are full of all type of sensors and have their own software delivered by the OEM.
The highest speed we have is 3600 rpm on plain AC motors.
No we don't have big turbo machinery

I don't think that in our plant misalignment is our number one headache, because we take care of it when installing and during regular preventive maintenance.
In my opinion the number one headache is walking around.., but I could be wrong

Yes, I agree that misalignment is one of our main enemies.
But I found that we lost focus of the true cause of misalignment.
Improper shims, thermal growth, coupling spacing, frame distortion, soft foot, warped bases, looseness in fondations, bearing misalignment, preload issues, and installtion errors are the real alignment issues that need to be addressed.
After these issues our understood then using our laser and dial indicators for alignment and documenting the alignment need to be used.
Bottom line is I found that our larger more expensive equipment are aligned but that smaller equipment is where we can do better percision maintenance to reap big rewards.

Hi, I'm new to the forum and decided this a good post to introduce myself

I ran a small Reliability Dept at a chemical factory, and one of the first technologies that was introduced was laser alignment. We started off small with one piece of kit and over a couple of years ended up with 4 (we had 4000 pumps on site).

We had several practices in place.

The first was to laser align every new installation.

The second was to laser align every machine whenever maintenance work was carried out (so during a breakdown or insurance inspection for example).

The third, and perhaps the most profitable was to have a rolling programme of the top 100 worst offending pumps. We identified the pumps with the highest failure rates and then carried out a full range of checks to determine the problem (including VA). ALL of them were misaligned. Many had very poor foundations, piping strain, etc. Some were the wrong pump or seal for the duty (water pumps now redundant so used for slurry was a favourite!).

With all of the above we found pumps that had been coming through the workshop every 3-6 months suddenly disappeared. They were still running when I left 3 years later.

Do you have your alignment management strategy written? What would be a typical content of it?

Unfortunately I no longer have a written strategy (I left the company some time ago).

Typically though we would start by specifying that every installation was laser aligned and gave our preferred tolerances and a written method statement (ie quality of shims, soft foot acceptance). We also stated that a report be produced after each new installation. This became part of the "terms and conditions" for contractors quoting for work. It also became standard practice for our in-house maintenance team.

The planning department was also involved. When they produced a job card for a breakdown or scheduled maintenance it would make reference to the above laser alignment procedure. They wouldn't accept a job as complete until a laser alignment report had been submitted.

The final phase required a lot of effort from the workshops, planning departments and everyone who had a notebook to trawl back through years of history. It was worth it in the end though.

I'm sorry I don't have anything more useable.

I think the most important stage is producing a method statement and then introducing it to all involved in fitting pumps, motors, etc. Start with a "where possible" approach and move towards the "ALWAYS".

I think if you do total alignment it will be good for many years to come. I've had opportunity to go back and check my work at 3 year intervals and 5 & 8 years and stay within 3 mils.

Shaft alignment only? May not be good enough! The pump must be set stress free; no soft foot or pipe strain and the piping need properly engineered supports. Right coupling selection for teh application. Shaft to shaft alignment with run-out checks along with stress free or no soft foot and consider conduit stress in some cases.

If you're setting machines and they keep changing, you may want to consider having a hard-look at your procedures and process.

Sam,

By the last sentence above, do you imply that the quality of the alignment may be inconsistent?

Yes, alignment seems to be a complicated subject. That's why I would like to know how others manage this subject.

Ever work oil petrochemical around Houston? Commission new plants. I was there during a new plant setup. Watching the contractor align machines so an inspector could look at the final alignment and sign-off the equipment. Not all the process was the same but you would see readings that looked very good. But, if you camped and observed what they were doing to get the zero-zero (never saw so many 0's in my life). In many instances they were inducing stress to obtain readings to satisy the inspector - he would see the acceptable shaft-to-shaft reading and pass it. A week later the machines were not even close to the ball park. I reported this and the management solution was; let them sign-off and complete the project and then my crew would correct the alignments. It was a fun project.

So, no! I don't think alignment by-inlarge is consistent most places from person to person regardless of method employed - laser or dial indicator.

Have you written something about it, Sam? What is the best way to manage alignment?