Maximizing Equipment Life By Identifying Failure Modes

Maximizing Equipment Life By Identifying Failure Modes

The RCM (Reliability-Centered Maintenance) methodology can be used effectively if we just learn about our equipment and its individual components, ie. rubber o-rings. Take a simple component such as a mechanical pump seal as an example. This mechanical seal is made up of some individual components such as O-rings, springs, gasket seals, seal faces, set screws, etc. Understanding all of the ways these components can fail can help us understand how to make the seal last longer.

What is a failure mode? A failure mode by RCM definition is any way that a component can fail in your process that will affect operation, rate, quality, or create an environmental, health and safety issue. Below is a list of failure modes for various mechanical seal systems. If we understand and determine the reason for failure in lost cases, the reason can be prevented or eliminated.

Mechanical seal failure modes:

Improper storage and handling

Improper installation

Failure of shaft O-Ring

Inability to adjust for wear

Seal cover O-Ring Failure

Failure of spring tension component

Fails due to coupling misalignment

Fails due to impeller imbalance

Fails due to bearing wear

Fails due to shaft deflection

Fails due to operating with no fluid film

Fails due to foreign material

Fails due to broken drive pin

Fails due to over-pressure

These are common failure modes for mechanical seals. If we can determine which of these failures have occurred, we can take steps to predict, prevent or eliminate the failure. An example may be the shaft O-ring, which is a common failure component. By looking at the O-ring, we may determine it has overheated. Our options may be to cool the liquid around the seal, change the high performance o-rings to another material or install a double seal with cooling media. We can now have longer life and extended run times, which means more products and more profit and less parts cost.

We can look at any piece of plant equipment or any plant process and break it down into components. We want to break the system or piece of equipment down to levels where we think the components may be failing. But the intent of understanding detailed component failures is that the learning curve can be improved to a much higher level. For additional information on identifying and rectifying failures, visit http://www.real-seal.com/ to learn more.

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