Industrial Infrared Inspection: Protecting Equipment and Reducing Downtime

To keep an industrial facility productive while minimizing costs, the reliability of the equipment used is essential. This includes the safety of the workspace. Unfortunately, invisible problems within the equipment, which are the cause of the majority of equipment failures, cannot be easily identified through routine visual inspections. Industrial Infrared Inspection addresses these failures through preventative maintenance.

With the help of advanced thermal imaging, maintenance teams can identify the overheating of electrical and mechanical components. This failure would be very expensive for a business, but its detection before the failure allows the business to reduce downtime, prolong the equipment’s lifespan, and highly increase the efficiency of business operations.

In this article, we will define Industrial Infrared Inspection. We will discuss its importance and Electrical Thermal Imaging, and its ability to keep industries safe from unnecessary equipment failures.

What Is Industrial Infrared Inspection?

Industrial Infrared Inspection is a method of non-destructive testing that uses infrared thermal cameras or thermal imaging cameras to identify differences in equipment surface temperatures. Every object has infrared energy. Specialized cameras capture this energy in thermal images.

These images can easily identify problems in the insulation or bearings, motors, or the presence of an overloaded circuit.

Compared to a standard inspection, Infrared Industrial Inspection can be done without requiring the necessary shutdown of the equipment.

How Infrared Inspection Works

A standard Infrared Inspection involves the use of a thermal imaging camera by a certified thermographer on equipment that is allowed to remain in the normal state of operation.

This process generally includes the following steps:

1. Equipment Evaluation

The inspector determines which equipment is to be analyzed thermally.

2. Thermal Imaging Scan

The infrared camera is used to capture the variation in temperature of the mechanical and electrical components.

3. Analysis of Images

Unusual heat signatures are determined by reviewing thermal images.

4. Extensive Reporting

Professional inspection reports contain:

- thermal images

- visible-light images

- temperature readings

- severity ratings

- recommended maintenance

This data assists maintenance teams in prioritizing repairs.

The Significance of Industrial Infrared Inspection

The unanticipated failure of equipment can result in:

- disruptions to production

- costly, unplanned repairs

- loss of income

- safety risks

- unnecessary increases in energy consumption

Industrial Infrared Inspections allow the early identification of problems so that the above results are avoided.

Instead of having to respond to the failure of equipment, maintenance can be scheduled for the most convenient time.

The Advantages of Industrial Infrared Inspection

1. Less Equipment Downtime

Diagnosing the failure of equipment is one of the most expensive issues in a manufacturing facility.

Because Industrial Infrared Inspections diagnose the failure of equipment, the maintenance can be scheduled, thus eliminating the issue.

2. Increased Safety

Thermally imaging the inspection of electrical components can identify overheating components that can lead to fires.

Employees will be working in a safer environment, and the company will have reduced the risk of incidents.

3. Maximizing Equipment Lifespan

Ignoring the component of equipment can lead to complete failure of the equipment.

Identifying issues and correcting them can significantly extend the life of the equipment.

4. Cost of Maintaining Equipment

The cost of maintaining equipment in a manufacturing facility can be very expensive.

Industrial Infrared Inspections allow the facilities to maintain the equipment to a lower cost.

5. Energy Efficiency

Inefficient electrical systems waste energy and heat in excess.

Thermal imaging helps companies find broken equipment that wastes energy. With this, businesses can save on costs and reduce their carbon footprint.

Industries Using Electrical Thermal Imaging

Electrical Thermal Imaging can be found in many industries.

Uses Include:

Electrical Panels

Thermal imaging can find:

Loose terminals

Overloaded breakers

Unbalanced loads

Damaged Fuses

These can become hot before they break.

Motors

All electric motors heat up when they are running.

Thermal Imaging can find problems like:

Worn bearings

Windings that are too hot

Cooling problems

Before motors break, these problems can be fixed.

Transformers

Transformers are important assets.

Infrared inspections can find:

Overheating

Loose connections

Failed Cooling

To make sure a transformer is working well, it should be checked often.

Switchgear

Thermal inspections look for high resistance, corrosion, and broken contacts.

Normal wear on a bearing causes friction and can be detected so switches can be fixed before they break.

Conveyor Systems

Thermal Imaging can find:

Heat loss

Damaged Insulation

Boilers

Thermal Imaging helps find insulation damage and heat loss to make industrial boilers more efficient and cost effective.

Where Infrared Inspections Can Help

Most industries can benefit from Thermal Imaging.

Some Examples Include:

Manufacturing

Food Processing

Warehouses

Data Centers

Hospitals

Mining

Oil and Gas

Power Generation

Thermal imaging can be useful in all industries where mechanical and electrical equipment is used.

Common Problems During Infrared Inspection

Temperature changes often signal that equipment will fail soon.

Common problems involve:

Loose electrical connections

Overloaded circuits

Failing breakers

Damaged insulation

Bearing Failure

Shaft misalignment

Belt tension

Overheated motors

Failure of cooling systems

Unbalanced electrical loads

Addressing common problems reduces the likelihood of expensive damages.

Best Practices for Industrial Infrared Inspection

While every company may have their own practices for infrared inspections, accurate results are likely to emerge if the following practices are used:

Conduct Regular Inspections

Heavily used machinery should receive inspections more than once a year.

Load Inspections

In order to see the most accurate infrared images, electrical components should be functioning.

Certified Thermographers

Certified infrared inspectors should be used to avoid an incorrect interpretation of thermal images.

Prioritize Critical Assets

Machinery that, when halted, would greatly affect production, should be the focus.

Consistent Comparisons

Temperature trends and outliers that are routinely documented should be checked for consistent abnormal changes.

Importance of Preventive Maintenance

In the past few decades, the way preventive maintenance has been viewed for industrial work has changed.

Industrial Infrared Inspection integrates well into this new way of viewing maintenance.

Preventive maintenance focuses on monitoring the thermal conditions of machinery to lessen the likelihood of a failure.

This decreases:

Preventative maintenance

Machine breakdowns

Stock of replacement parts

Unplanned downtime

Reliability of machinery is increased.

When choosing an infrared inspection service, keep the below in mind:

Certified Thermographers

High quality thermal cameras

Detailed inspections

Experience with infrared inspections in industry

Experience with preventive maintenance

Quick reporting

Standards of the industry are met

Thermographers with experience in the industrial infrared field are likely to give accurate infrared results and sound tips for maintenance.

Thermal imaging will continue to advance its capabilities and likely become more useful to industry professionals.

Modern systems provide many new features.

- Higher image resolution

- AI-assisted fault detection

- Automated drone industrial inspections

- Automated temperature monitoring

- Cloud reporting

- Predictive maintenance

All these systems allow industries to detect failures and improve maintenance.

As Industry 4.0 continues to expand, Electrical Thermal Imaging will enable the support of operational reliability.

Conclusion

The reliability of equipment is crucial for all industrial activities of every sector. The occurrence of an unexpected failure generates an increase in costs for a repair and simultaneously creates a limiting factor for the production processes and a potential safety risk.

The introduction of Industrial Infrared Inspection allows companies to unmask the hidden electrical and mechanical failure risks before they develop more critical problems.

The use of periodic Infrared Inspection enables maintenance staff to identify overheating components, poor connections, overloaded circuits, and failing mechanical parts while the systems and equipment remain in operation.

This combination, together with Electrical Thermal Imaging, helps to provide a safe solution, to increase the life of the equipment, and to lower maintenance costs and unplanned production downtime.

Those companies that incorporate thermal inspections within the preventive maintenance of their systems and equipment will experience improved operational performance and reliability with a reduction in costs over a longer period.

Improved asset protection, uninterrupted operation and the ability to run industrial plants at optimum performance are other benefits of regular inspections.

FOCUS

1. What is Industrial Infrared Inspection?

Industrial Infrared Inspection is a method to ensure the reliability of the systems that combines the use of thermal VIP and the infrared inspection. VIP allows the visual identification of abnormal heat patterns in the electrical and mechanical components of the systems when they are in a non-functional state.

2. How often should Infrared Inspection be performed?

Most industrial facilities benefit from annual inspections, while critical equipment may require quarterly or semi-annual inspections depending on operating conditions.

3. What is Electrical Thermal Imaging?

Caught in time, Electrical Thermal Imaging finds components that have overheated, loose electrical connections, overloaded circuits, failing breakers, motors, transformers, switchgear and others, without having to disrupt the operation.

4. Can Infrared inspections decrease maintenance costs?

Definitely. Faults caught in time mean repairs done in time and planned rather than costly and sudden repairs that disrupt work and damage the equipment beyond repair.

5. From which industries does infrared inspection provide value?

Manufacturing, power generation, oil and gas, health care, food processing, commercial buildings, data centers, mining, and automotive industries. Regular Industrial Infrared Inspection provides quantifiable value to these industries.