Condition Assessment of Blowers
Blowers are mostly Centrifugal Blowers and Positive Displacement Blowers (PD Blowers). The rotary positive displacement blowers has two rotors with 2/3 lobes each, connected by timing gears. There are multistage blowers too. Both these types has mostly similar failure modes.
Few of the problems with industrial blowers are listed below,
- Faulty Bearings
- Fan blade touching the blower housing
- Unbalance in Fan/Impeller
- Loose shaft in bearing
- Loose bearing on shaft
- Faults in Gearbox (See CM of Gearbox)
- Faults in driving motor (See CM of Electric Motors)
- Elongated/ torn Belt issues
- Lubrication issues – Over Lubrication or Inadequate Lubrication
- Deposition of Foreign material causing unbalance
- Corrosion at fan blades causing unbalance
Condition Assessment of Blower Unit includes CAss of Driving Motor & Gearbox too. See CAss of Electric Motors & CAss of Gearbox to know about it in details.
Condition Assessment (CAss) of Blowers includes Visual Inspection, Vibration Probing Study, Vibration Assessment, Thermography, Ultrasound Assessment, etc.
Visual Inspection includes, inspecting the ambient conditions – dust/ Cotton particles/moisture (humidity)/gases, operating conditions – load, number of starts, ventilation grill for chock up, deposition of dust/particles on the fan blade, rusting of fan blades, looseness of balancing weights on fan blades, etc.
Vibration Probing Study is done to learn about the condition of the rigidness of foundation, deformation in base rail, fastening of blower unit with base rail, & soft foot conditions.
Vibration Assessment, Thermography, Ultrasound Assessment is done to learn the condition of bearings, Misalignment, Rotor Imbalance, Bearing Housing, Belt Tightness/ Looseness, condition of sheaves/pulleys etc.
