Dear gents,

Is it possible to make fully diagnosis on steam trap condition with infrared termography? Or on the contrary some possible failure modes could not be detected? In affirmative case which is the procedure for the detection?

Regards,

Allen

Allen,
I was taught that best way was with Ultrasonics and a temperature measurement.

Your answer is “absolutely”. I use IR and ultrasound. Working in a chemical plant I ran the steam trap and steam distribution program and now I am working at a VA hospital doing the same. With IR I can walk through and check 1000 traps per day. You can see them working. In a short time you will learn to see good trap from bad. I then follow up questionable traps with an ultrasound inspection. The plant has 3,500+ traps and using ultrasound alone takes far too long. With IR I can look at a bank or traps with 100 or more and the malfunctioning traps jump out from the others.

As Boilerjoe suggests, IR is most valuable when used to look at lots of traps, sorting out the suspect ones for followup with airborne ultrasound.

In fact there are some traps that cannot be reliable diagnosed with IR alone, for instance, when they are covered with insulation. Other traps weep condensate or do not exhibit a clear thermal difference when working properly.

But used together, IR and ultrasound are a great combination.