Making audio actionable: Condition monitoring for the optimization of up-times and preventive maintenance windows.
Noise in an industrial facility is normal. But what happens when parts of the processes start to deteriorate? The sound signature will slowly change over time, or sudden sound events, that may indicate failure, can occur. By listening through the noise, we enable continuous monitoring of machinery and processes of interest.
Using our acoustic sensors as a sound measurement device you will be able to identify trends, levels, deviations and anomalies in critical components or situations. Through the integrated camera, we enable swift visual identification, including the capability to zoom into the different components. This can all be done remotely to avoid human exposure to harsh and possible hazardous environments. You can easily identify deviations by online or offline sound analysis and comparisons with historical patterns and benchmarks.
Acoustic sensors in condition monitoring can add value to industrial processes and applications by for instance identifying leaks in places and situations where conventional sensors don´t suffice, predict failure in rotating or moving critical components as well as enabling optimized utilization of planned maintenance windows. All which ensure increased up-time in your production or process facility.
CONDITION MONITORING
How it works
A single microphone array can simultaneously focus on different processes, machines, or components, providing individual listening characteristics. The array can be placed at an appropriate distance from the areas of interest. As a result, we have several individual audio streams, which we can derive different feature trends, such as sound pressure levels (dB), and much more.
Different trends correlate with different process properties, enabling the tracking of multiple features of the same signal, as well as relating these features to the physical properties of the sound source. A sound deviation analysis in an acoustic trend can then identify anomalies and faults.
USE CASE SCENARIOS
Acoustic trending in production and process industry
In a normal production or process industry environment such as i.e. pulp and paper, oil and gas, and metal production, the most critical equipment and processes are usually connected to a wide variety of sensors of some kind, indicating machine health and process stability. Still one of the most important sensors are the operator’s hearing and experience. This sense has proved difficult to digitalize in noisy and harsh environments. Until now.
Squarehead’s microphone array uses hundreds of «ears» to provide you with superhearing abilities. This allows you to see the acoustic environment of the area you are monitoring and detect possible deviations. By placing different listening points at different positions, you can stream a wide variety of different acoustic trends that can be directly integrated to an industrial control system. This ensures more control, increased efficiency and reduced unscheduled downtime.
NOT WHAT YOU WERE LOOKING FOR? SEE HOW WE USE ACOUSTIC TECHNOLOGY IN QUALITY CONTROL PROCEDURES.
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