Thermal Imaging in Preventive Maintenance Programs

Equipment failure can surprise you when you’re managing a business even though it’s something you desperately want to avoid. Things get even more critical when the machinery that’s broken down has a pivotal role in your business’ productivity.

Intending to avoid shutdowns, companies have initiated scheduled maintenance programs. For it to be practical, a successful and meaningful maintenance plan needs to be backed by data collected from accurately done surveys. The maintenance program should also be planned and scheduled properly. Companies are increasingly using thermography as a part of their preventive maintenance programs so that there are no interruptions to their operations.

Why Should Thermal Imaging be Included in Preventive Maintenance Programs?

Fires triggered by electrical panels due to poor maintenance, defective wiring, and underrated fuses and circuit breakers are what insurance companies deal with year after year. Poorly maintained, improperly used, and overused machinery and equipment may also be the reasons behind losses suffered by businesses.

To keep equipment and machinery working without unexpected interruptions, having a preventive maintenance program is a must. With a properly scheduled preventive maintenance program, you can take timely action that helps minimize equipment breakdowns helping avoid costly repairs. Your operations, therefore, remain unaffected.

Including thermal imaging in a preventive maintenance program adds value while minimizing damages and reducing the possibility of equipment and machinery facing frequent issues. You can improve operational efficiency and prevent the occurrence of problems by having thermal imaging conducted on all electrical and mechanical equipment.

Thermal imaging also helps you prevent losses by preventing business downtime from causing loss of production. It plays an important role in preventing the loss of your entire facility by ensuring that all your equipment and machinery are kept in running condition and that they suffer no critical breakdown.

Thermography Explained

Thermography is the commonly used word for the practice of conducting thermal imaging. It involves studying heat distribution in the form of visual pictures that represent thermal data. Infrared thermal cameras generate thermal images. An electronic image is created when thermal imaging cameras capture infrared radiation emitted by the object being tested. Thermography uses the heat that objects give off to create images for further analysis using special software.

Thermal images indicate leakages in the form of different colors. Warmer temperatures are indicated by the brighter colors of red, yellow, and orange while the colors purple, and dark blue/black indicate cooler temperatures. You know that there’s a fault when escaping heat is shown in the bright colors. In case of water seepage, the cooler areas usually appear blue.

How Thermal Imaging Helps

Thermal imaging can immediately assess hot spots and moisture helping you minimize damage by conducting timely repairs. Performing regular thermal imaging as a part of preventive maintenance comes with certain potential benefits. It helps locate any existing deficiencies in the insulation and electrical systems, whether there are any leakages in the roof, whether any radiant floor heating leaks exist and any other issues a structure may face.

Thermal imaging can immediately assess hot spots and moisture helping you minimize damage by conducting timely repairs. Performing regular thermal imaging as a part of preventive maintenance comes with certain potential benefits. It helps locate any existing deficiencies in the insulation and electrical systems, whether there are any leakages in the roof, whether any radiant floor heating leaks exist and any other issues a structure may face.

Thermal imaging can immediately assess hot spots and moisture helping you minimize damage by conducting timely repairs. Performing regular thermal imaging as a part of preventive maintenance comes with certain potential benefits. It helps locate any existing deficiencies in the insulation and electrical systems, whether there are any leakages in the roof, whether any radiant floor heating leaks exist and any other issues a structure may face.

The Uses of Thermal Imaging

Thermal imaging has various uses. Let’s take a peek at them so we can know how they can benefit us.

  • Roofs: Any failures, leakages, or moisture retention on a roof can be spotted in thermal imaging. The intrusion of water and moisture accumulation beneath the roof’s surface is also captured. Since it has a high thermal capacity, water emits heat much slower than the materials surrounding it on other parts of the roof. This helps in moisture detection. It’s best to assess the surface of roofs in the evening since by then, the daytime thermal energy has been released back into the atmosphere.
  • Buildings: Insulation deficiencies can be manifested in the form of heat loss and infiltration. Any issues that exist in the insulation and any damage that may have been caused like plumbing leaks and condensation are illustrated in thermal images. Even a structure’s components can be imaged provided the conditions are favorable. Thermal imaging helps reveal faults that exist in buildings invisible to the naked eye.
  • Mechanical: Thermal imaging can be used for the detection of excessive friction, heat flow that’s not uniform, wear and tear in motors and bearings and machinery, temperature distributions, faults in piping and insulation, and equipment tank levels. Even if your property is small and not that complex, you should still schedule regular thermal imaging inspections. Thermal imaging is especially beneficial for older structures besotted with worn-out electrical components, boilers, exposed wiring, the machinery of high value critical to production, etc.
  • Electrical: Overload is created when the connection between components is deficient. This is captured by thermal imagers as an elevation in temperature. It’s compared to similar connection types under similar load conditions, i.e. the ambient temperature. Transformer issues involving oil levels can also be captured by thermal imaging.

Conclusion

You must include thermal imaging in your preventive maintenance program. Thermal imaging helps you locate various maintenance issues when there’s enough time to take remedial action. Such timely action can help you save millions in potential costs of repair that would have arisen due to delayed action. Hence, properly scheduled and planned thermal imaging makes preventive maintenance programs far more effective and efficient.

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