Examples of CBM application

1 Nationally
1.1 Freda Rebecca
Condition monitoring is done on critical components for example SAG mill in the case of Freda
Rebecca Gold Mine. Many parameters are monitored including pressure, temperature, vibration
and crack propagation. When the crack is propagating in a trunnion there is an increase in velocity
by 33%. According to the speed graphs when the crack propagates the speed is also increasing
which will make it easier for the controller at the SCADA to recognize the development of crack
and also when the crack propagates above 50% of the trunnion diameter the shaft will break off
and stop. The alarm system goes hand in hand with change in speed of the SAG mill. Change in
speed of the shaft is recognized by accelerometer and the change in strain of the will produce an
electric charge that will trigger the alarm system. This is shown by the figure below:
1.2 ZimPlats
ZimPlats uses CBM at the company’s processing plant there is various equipment which include
electric motors that power the ball mills. The electric motor form the back bone of the ball mill
where there is the main size reduction for leaching the mineral. All process at the plant depend on
crushing because the ore cannot be smelted or even purified without first crushing the ore which
makes the electric motor or mills rather quite a critical asset. In order to overcome the power surge
due to overloading, the company installed sensors in mills which report the real time condition of
the mill motor. Sentinel Power is a product line that includes signature monitoring sensors,
prognostic reasoners, and a visualization tool which provide advanced diagnostics and prognostics
for power systems. These reasoners analyse data from any kind of sensor and provide insight as to
the health of systems by detecting, extracting, and analysing degradation and fault signatures. Such
data is presented on a screen where an engineer constantly checks the performance of the electric
motor and any decrease in performance can be meticulously catered for without shutting down
plant.
1.3 BETA bricks
At BETA bricks, infrared cameras are used in the imaging of mixing blades located in mixing
chambers so as to allow determination of the state of the mixing blades during the process of clay
separation and mixing. During operation, friction between classes of sand and aggregate results in
operating temperatures of the energizing equipment increasing. Continual infrared visualisation
allows prediction and inspection of failure and faults upon the equipment.

1.4 Air Zimbabwe

For the airline operators, the aircraft health monitoring and prognostics provide the opportunity to
identify failure precursors and perform proactive maintenance in advance to reduce unscheduled
in-service interruptions. Modern commercial aircrafts are typically equipped with Airplane
Condition Monitoring System (ACMS), which connects with a large number of sensors and
detectors distributed over the aircraft. During the flight of the aircraft, a wide range of flight data
covering various air borne systems, such as the system performance data, environmental and load
parameters, are collected and recorded by the ACMS, which can be used for system and component
health monitoring and failure prognostics.
2 International
2.1 ABB
Internationally many manufacturing industries have adopted the use of condition monitoring in
enhancing plant capacity utilisation and overall effectiveness (A.Ulimoen, 2016). Oil and gas
mining giant ABB has been leading the pack in the used of these predictive maintenance strategies.
Most of the company’s equipment has been fitted with sensors which gather real time data and
report all findings to a central processing unit. With the advent of the fourth industrial revolution
(industry 4.0) the oil company has gone a step further by introducing cloud services where
equipment can report it condition to expert support which might not necessarily be present at the
plant and with the use of analytics equipment failure can be predicted with insane levels of
accuracy.

2.2 Rio Grande Railway Company

Automation of monitoring condition 1st appeared in the late 1940's in the Rio Grande Railway
Company, to detect coolant and fuel leaks in a diesel engine by testing for traces in the lubricating
oil. They achieved outstanding economic success in reducing engine failure by performing
maintenance whenever glycol or fuel was detected in the engine oil. During the 1950's, through to
the 70s, CBM grew in popularity and a vibrant CBM technology industry emerged providing
training, products, and services which came to be known as "predictive maintenance."

2.3 General Motors

Oil debris analysis is one popular technique in the CBM domain. According to Prajapati et al.,
some automobile companies like GM has deployed a CBM system to detect the oil quality based
on the life of oil components. However, this strategy is not efficient because the oil change interval
usually depends on the usage mode of a vehicle which can be identified by its mission profile data
during its usage period. Some vehicles may be frequently used in a highway, while some could
also be mainly used in an urban. Diverse mission profile types make the degradation process of
engine oil different.

2.4 Aviation
The risk due to fatigue cracks in fuselage has been identified early in civil aviation due to the three
accidents of Comet aircraft (BOAC Flight 783 (1953), BOAC Flight 781 (1954), South African
Airways Flight 201 (1954)). In addition, the accident of Aloha Airlines Flight 243 (1988) revealed
that multiple-site fatigue cracking caused the failure of the lap joint. Fatigue cracks also caused
accidents in other parts of the aircraft, such as the wing spar failure in Northwest Airlines Flight
421 (1948). Since then, inspection and scheduled maintenance have been conducted to detect
fatigue cracks and repair them before they cause structural failure. However, deficiency and
mishap during the inspection and maintenance often caused accidents.