Jerry Woolard of General Mills, Chicago is a Certified Ultrasound Inspector and Maintenance Reliability Engineer. He has been given the task to compile a list of engineering considerations that could be applied when commissioning a new plant.

Jerry asks other Airborne Ultrasound users this question:

"As a user of airborne ultrasound what have you discovered, using that technology, that led to a change in the way things are done?"

In other words, how has ultrasound inspection improved the way you do things, and how would you apply those improvements to a brand new facility?

Ultrasound is a versatile technology with many uses for predictive maintenance personnel. By its very nature, your answers may be quite broad. Jerry provides some examples that include:

Changes to your lubrication program
Changes to your air compressor system
Changes in the design of a machine
Frequency increase or decrease of route monitoring
Use of a different bearing design

Your answers will be posted to the United Nations of Ultrasound User Group pages and published in an upcoming Ultrawave Technology Report newsletter.

Jerry,

We have recently partnered airborne ultrasound with our regular IR thermography scanning of our blast furnace bustle pipe area and have had a lot of success pinpointing cracks and pinholes within hot areas.

We are also looking to partner ultrasound with our vibration program to “filter”, quickly check a large number of identical motor bearings in one of our annealing areas.

Our most successful use of airborne ultrasound has been our leak detection program. The AIST (Association of Iron and Steel Technology) has awarded us the 2004 Brazen Reliability Achievement Award for reliability improvements and achievements. WE presented a paper entitled “Stopping the Million $ Give-Away” outlining our leak detection program, at the AISTech 2004 Conference in Nashville, Tennessee in September.

With only about one third of our facility surveyed, we have identified over one million dollars in gases lost due to undetected leaks. Any facility NEW, OLD, LARGE, or SMALL should consider implementing some type of airborne leak detection program. Not only for the obvious dollar savings, but for the not so obvious SAFETY FACTOR.

Jim Cruikshank
Maintenance Analyst
U.S. Steel Gary Works
(219)888-2750
jimcruikshank@hotmail.com

How do you measure, quantify natural gas leaks to put a dollar figure on them with ultrasound?