Process industry
Case Nordzucker - water in turbine oil
Fluid Eye® Trend monitoring solution Plug&Play installation was carried out by the local maintenance team
Suomen Sokeri Oy has a sugar mill in Kantvik, Finland with a long history. It was established already in 1918 to process sugar beet. Today, Suomen Sokeri Oy is part of the international Nordzucker Group.
BACKGROUND
Nordzucker Group’s Kantvik plant adopted Fluid Eye® Trend, an online oil performance monitoring solution, to monitor its turbine oils in the spring of 2018. Due to its seasonal nature of operations turbine utilization rate fluctuates. However, the system needs to be in perfect condition all the time and ready for full capacity instantly. Operational performance was secured earlier with quarterly oil analysis. Nordzucker Kantvik plant decided to adopt online monitoring solution to ensure real-time visibility and maximized oil performance in a periodically changing operational environment.
ACTIONS
Real-time monitoring alerted in the beginning of 2020 of oil performance deviation that indicated about humidity accumulation in the oil. Based on the alert maintenance team did a machine audit to identify potential sources for water leakage. Instantly the team couldn’t identify any direct sources for the leakage. At the same time laboratory analysis confirmed that the humidity level had doubled since the beginning and it was well in line with Fluid Eye® Trend’s data.
Fluid Eye® Trend’s intuitive user interface makes it easy to detect oil performance deviations instantly
Although the problem couldn’t be removed instantly it can now be monitored real-time and managed effectively. Local maintenance team continues more detailed root-cause investigation. Prior to finding the reason for this challenge they can intervene and manage potentially escalating fault conditions in operation.
Power plant manager Toni Jokela: “Fluid Eye® Trend has increased reliability through real-time visibility to the process critical turbine oil’s performance. Like in this case our goal is to identify problems early as possible and intervene to potential operational malfunctions in advance.”
Compared to traditional sample based oil analysis real-time oil performance monitoring is a cost-effective and reliable method to instantly identify potential challenges in lubrication systems. This way potential problems can be addressed well in advance before escalating into a visible, hearable and vibrating problems, tells Mikko Oksanen from Fluid Intelligence Oy.
CUSTOMER BENEFITS
Cost benefits from proactive maintenance
Early indication of potential problems
Enable early intervening to problems and preventative maintenance
Maximizing oil performance in all operational circumstances