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Manufacturing & Plant Process

We have worked on many interesting projects that involve manufacturing and plant process issues relating to vibration and/or acoustic noise for many heavy industry clients. The industrial projects are too numerous to include descriptions for all. A partial list of projects include:

  • Paper Mill Retrofit - Dynamic testing of the structural platform supporting the motors and reducers at a large paper mill to allow us to estimate force levels applied by the existing drive system of multiple motors and reducers. This testing was followed by FEA modeling of several new structural design options using these force estimates to set stiffness requirements for structural members.

  • Paper Mill Test Lab Vibration - Investigation of structural dynamics and excitation of an elevated analytic lab used for quality control at a paper mill.

  • Factory Noise Levels - Severe acoustic noise issue at a potato chip factory related to high sound pressure levels associated with standing acoustic waves, coupled with vibrating conveyors.

  • Oil Rig Vibration and Acoustic Noise - Testing, analysis, design, modification and installation of vibration and acoustic treatments of engine/generator sets and of the above living space, on a deep well drill rig in the Caspian sea.

  • Crankshaft Failure - Dynamic testing and analysis of repeated Crankshaft failure on engine/generator sets for oil industry special purpose ships in the Gulf of Mexico. We diagnosed a problem that had been overlooked by industry experts for two year using structural dynamics testing and applied physics to the engine sets.

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Steam Power Generation, 250 MW Steam Turbine, Diagnostic Testing of Intermittent Vibration Issue

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  • Mineral Processing Building Vibration - Troubleshooting of severe vibration associated with a multi-ton sorting screen on the 5th floor of newly constructed 6 story structure for the sorting mineral. Our analysis involved extensive dynamics testing, FEA modeling, numerical modeling to evaluate several engineering solutions: the Design of 10,000 lbs tuned reaction masses, custom vibration isolation redesign, and structural stiffness improvements.

  • Fan Blade Failure - Large cast fan blade dynamic testing and strain gage testing to troubleshoot catastrophic failures associated with blade design and test setup.

  • Fan Blade Design - Testing of prototype fan blade design using strain and dynamic testing to validate accuracy of FEA model and stress analysis results.

  • Cooling Fan Exciting the Building - Troubleshooting large cooling fan vibration problems on an elevated structure (several projects of this type).

  • Fan Base Dynamics - Troubleshooting of fan and motor base dynamics (several projects of this type).

  • Boiler Wall Vibration - Testing and characterization of large D-type boiler vibration at a steam heating plant for a university.

  • Boiler Induced Elevated Floor Vibration - Characterize effects of floor dynamics supporting large boiler to determine floor modification options.

  • Boiler Refractory Cone failures - Troubleshooting of repeated refractory cone failures involving dynamics testing, failure analysis.

Food Industry Steel pressure vessels Che

pressurized vessels, like this one used in the food industry, are tested to ensure potential failures aren't catastrophic

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  • Fatigue cracking in Vacuum Process - Testing of structural dynamics and strain measurement to troubleshoot fatigue cracking in low vacuum process equipment at a dairy plant.

  • Train Vibration Affecting Process - Train vibration testing to determine the effects on high-tech manufacturing of semiconductors and disk drive heads (several projects of this type).

  • Coal Power Plant with Severe Vibration Issue - Dynamic testing, strain testing, as well as system/thermal analysis, to troubleshoot a severe vibration issue at a newly constructed power plant associated with the turbine isolation platform.

  • Heating Tube failure - Troubleshooting of repeated failures of the long tubes that were used as a cross-flow heat exchanger involving long duration strain, temperature, and dynamic testing.

  • Fatigue Cracking of Printing Press - Troubleshooting of fatigue cracking of printing equipment at a fruit packing plant involving strain measurement and dynamic testing and analysis.

  • Turbine Vibration Alarm Issues and Pedestal Cracking - Troubleshooting of long standing turbine vibration alarms and foundation cracking at a fertilizer plant involving system analysis, dynamic testing, strain testing, displacement (gap) measurement, and long term monitoring and analysis.

 

Most of these projects involve not only our many years of structural dynamic experience, but also consideration of many aspects of basic physics and engineering to narrow down the scope of the problem at hand to form a few likely hypotheses. This detective work is what we do best. The experimental tests we perform using acceleration, velocity, and displacement measurements, creative dynamic testing, strain, temperature, other parameters, help us to validate or disprove a hypothesis and point the way forward to a set of engineered solution options, and/or further study.

(see Diagnostic Testing, Vibration Testing, Modal Analysis and ODS Testing, and Finite Element Analysis (FEA)

 

Descriptions of many projects are presented in the other tabs on the top of this page (and in the other topics of the left hand links). We plan on updating the web site periodically to include examples of our work. Our extensive Client List represents hundreds of projects, some involving days of work, others lasting several months.

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