500hp motor - monitoring of temperature for windings and bearings
500hp motor - monitoring of temperature for windings and bearings
(OP)
We have 6 500HP horizontal sleeve bearing motors which were purchased with winding RTD’s and bearing thermocouples installed in the motor.
These temperature sensors were not connected to any plant computer and are only monitored manually on an infrequent basis. The motors have been in operation for 14 years with no known problems. Bearing vibration is monitored approximately every 3 months and we try to take oil samples annually.
Standard practice in new construction would be to monitor and alarm these temperatures by computer.
Now I am faced with a question. Should we go through the trouble of hooking these temperature sensors to our computer. I would like to see it done but the cost to run cables will be high and I would have to justify the need to spend that money.
** Are there any standards that cover the subject of whether sleeve bearing and winding temperatures should be alarmed for this size motor?
What is the likelihood of a rapidly developing fault that will wipe out the machine before we have a chance to detect and act. (I can think of an easy one… loss of oil due to leak… we have no indication until the machine trips). Any comments on other possible failure scenario’s.
Any other comments about the pro’s and con’s?
Thanks.
These temperature sensors were not connected to any plant computer and are only monitored manually on an infrequent basis. The motors have been in operation for 14 years with no known problems. Bearing vibration is monitored approximately every 3 months and we try to take oil samples annually.
Standard practice in new construction would be to monitor and alarm these temperatures by computer.
Now I am faced with a question. Should we go through the trouble of hooking these temperature sensors to our computer. I would like to see it done but the cost to run cables will be high and I would have to justify the need to spend that money.
** Are there any standards that cover the subject of whether sleeve bearing and winding temperatures should be alarmed for this size motor?
What is the likelihood of a rapidly developing fault that will wipe out the machine before we have a chance to detect and act. (I can think of an easy one… loss of oil due to leak… we have no indication until the machine trips). Any comments on other possible failure scenario’s.
Any other comments about the pro’s and con’s?
Thanks.





RE: 500hp motor - monitoring of temperature for windings and bearings
The vast majority of time we operate 4 out of 6 machines and it would be no problem at all to shut down a machine for repairs IF we know there is a problem.
RE: 500hp motor - monitoring of temperature for windings and bearings
Are the motors AC or DC machines and what is the voltage ?
Are they variable speed ? If so how is speed varied [eg DC Thyristor Convertor, or AC Invertor ?
How is the load coupled to the Motor Shaft? - via gearbox, direct coupling, fluid, or torque limiting coupling etc.
What is the load type ?[continuous Torque, Fan Law, or cyclical] - All have a bearing on the type and severity of a potential failure.
Whatever the distance from Motors to computer, EMI and RFI could trigger false alarms so suggest you install signal conditioners as close to the motors as possible. Conditionaers to have 4 to 20mA output driving twisted pair screened cable.
Sorry for all the questions, hope this helps. SolDirJoe
RE: 500hp motor - monitoring of temperature for windings and bearings
RE: 500hp motor - monitoring of temperature for windings and bearings
Thanks vw, that's good info. Do others have the same experience as VWedelich that an alarm of bearing temperature (or increasing trend) rarely serves a useful purpose? i.e. failures occur so fast there is not time to do anything anyway?
RE: 500hp motor - monitoring of temperature for windings and bearings
RE: 500hp motor - monitoring of temperature for windings and bearings
[NB. Absolute overtemp alarms, if set to a point which gives adequate warning or alarm trip, are subject to false alarms due to excessive change in ambient temp sudden increase in demand, or load duty cycle]
Measuring bearing housing as well as bearing temperature and configuring the signals in the form of a Wheatstone Bridge compensates for environmental changes to both components, and comparing "change" with the alarm setting gives a much larger discrimination against 'false' or 'too late' signal levles. eg. 0 to 10 V = alarm signal level versus 0 to 10 Volts = actual temp + overtemp level.
Thats a poor explanation, but I hope the point stands out.
RTC's in the windings are set to trip at levles dependant upon the Class of Insulation of the copper windings [eg. Class B, Class E etc] They are reliable and have a very low slope at temperatures below the 'chosen' temperature, at which point the resistance increases almost vertically with further increase in temp. In the absence of current forcing Electronic controllers, they should be used mainly for trip protection. [ie. dirt, iol laden dust in cooling ducts and slots, poor ventillation etc etc.
If the windings overheat due to mechanical overload [such as the onset of bearing failure], then it is highly likely the sleeve bearings would would collapse before reaching RTC trip resistance.
I guess best thing is to flip the problem on its head. Determine the budget available versus risk of failure of a motor. Get quote for embedded thermocuples and differential amplifier with alarm output. If the cost falls within budget, then its cheap insurance.
Hope this help[s
SoldirJoe
RE: 500hp motor - monitoring of temperature for windings and bearings
http://www.oilanalysis.com/secure/product_detail.asp?catalogid=21
for a book covering bearing analysis and predictive maintenance
http://www.coxmoor.com/images/pdfs/infrared.pdf
includes a graph that shows the bearing insipient thermal deterioration
RE: 500hp motor - monitoring of temperature for windings and bearings
RE: 500hp motor - monitoring of temperature for windings and bearings
They are quite common in applications outside of North America.
RE: 500hp motor - monitoring of temperature for windings and bearings
These are oil bath (not forced oil) sleeve bearings. I don't know the loading. Is that rotor weight divided by area of the lower half?
I don't intend to provide any automatic temperature trips. These motors have a safety function, which must be performed when called upon. (auto trip could jeapardize that). The alarm would allow manual intervention under conditions when it is not imperative that machine operation continue.
RE: 500hp motor - monitoring of temperature for windings and bearings
First find out which basic type of RTD is involved. The two most common versions are:
The 10 ohm using a copper wire resistance element. It measures exactly 10 ohms at a reference temp of 25 C (77F)
The 120 ohm element, using nickel wire. Its resistance is 120 ohms at oC (32F)
To get detailed calibration tables for them, request tables
16-9 and 120-7 from MINCO Products, Inc.
Make it a habit to measure the ristance of each RTD in the motor carefully at ambient temp, with the motor cold. Don't use any of the RTD having a cold resistance that doesn't closely match the calibration table value for that ambient. The great advantage of RTDs they permit continuous temp monitoring.
Here are some considerations affecting the choice of control circuit settings:
How critical is process continuity in the plant? It has long been recognized throughout the motor industry that most machines can be overloaded for a short period not exceeding SF,
Alarm and shutdown temp too close together can lead to unexpected shutdown without prior warning. The motor mfg knows that thermostats, for example, may operate at any temp from 5C below to 5C above their nominal setting. But only the user knows what tolerances may apply to his monitoring equipment in an RTD circuit.
Will the motor be subject to suddenly applied overloads, or are they only likely to come gradually, If a slowly rising winding temp is more probable, a fairly late alarm will still provide time for corrective action. But a suddenly applied overload will result in a high rate of increase in winding temp, so circuits should trip sooner.
Can the motor be unloaded by closing a valves, switching to backup equipment, and so forth? That also would justify setting a fairly high alarm setting, because trouble can be compensated in a hurry. But if unloading is lengthy or difficult, then a lower alarm setting will provide an earlier warning.
NEMA standards for 1500hp and below assume that RTD rise for class B or F insulated machines will be 10C above the resistance rise. For class H machine, the standard difference is 15C instead of 10C.
High cost monitoring equipment may be hard to justify, but RTDs are the most reliable hot spot temperature sensors available.
Kind Regards,
motorhead
RE: 500hp motor - monitoring of temperature for windings and bearings
If you already have controllers and protection for these motors, here is a stand alone RTD monitor that is low cost and simple to implement. I have used them several times in the past and have been satisfied with performance and reliability so far. They use a mux on the inputs and so are not quite as fast acting as the traditional Multilin RTD input option, but I too question the responsiveness with regards to bearing failures anyway. As mentioned by others though, the winding temperature can be very usefull. Since you already have the sensors imbeedded anyway, this would be a simple way to get information into a computer system for tranding etc. w/o having to wire each RTD individually.
http://www.springercontrols.com/page4.html
Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati
RE: 500hp motor - monitoring of temperature for windings and bearings
Yes and no.
But to make this a short but effective reply, i would like to suggest this.
Any type of sensor of critical components, (bearings, temperature, trip, lube oil loss, air ventilation loss), is a useful tool in preventing Downtime, failures, and maximizing in scheduling Preventative maintenance to these motors, it has been my experience with northfield chilling system similar to what you have, all the sensors from the pressure, loaming, temperatures (feeds and return) ammonia detections, water pressure,temp,ETC) it all can assist you to predict the behaviour of your equipment, the standard is this:
All sensors are tied to a central computer a/d interface board and the software interprets the values to a usable variable that the user can understand, at any given time the input from the keyboard can map your sensors layout, and the health of the system, (that's the previous technology), the new technology utilizes wireless transmitters attached to the addressable modules on the the sensors wherever they may be, this information is transmitted back to the computer which will display the information to you in regard to the health of the equipment, in my plant, we had cable wunning everywhere for each sensors, something to the order of 4000 inputs ranging from signals from transducers, to power line "doughnuts" current clamps, to temperature of the incoming water and pressure, to bearing temperature, lube oil pumps, pressure , temp, you get the picture, and we under took a monumental task to add in more sensors that were not being utilized, and our Downtime decreased, our efficiency increased by 98.7 percet ( a hard number to maintain in a harsh environment that we produce in), and our overhead initially was high, but the overhead came down when we notice the components we normally order to make repairs, suddenly decreased and actually put money back into our budget in the maintenance dept.
But to answer your question, yes it would be advisable to use these sensors, and to chart a history on these motors for future planning or scheduling of PM, this is the only way to reduce the cost of maintenance, cost of ownership, and the cost of downtime, to give you an example, one machine we use, for every 1 hour of downtime, it cost the company on the order of 5010.00/hr, and if a system could have been seen earlier, and a history is known, we would have known that the bearing was about to fail, and the pm crew could have had it replaced on a scheduled base, but since it failed out right with no knowledge of the impending failure, we had to resort to ordering the part special delivery, (thousand of dollars), pull 3 12 hour shift to tear down the affected equipment, (overtime) and reassemble, then restart .. so do the math, 5000. times 36 hours.. 180,000 dollars.... then theres the risk that the director of operation will want to know if this could have been prevented.. yes it could have been prrevented... the information is there, the technology is there, and so are the engineers..
RE: 500hp motor - monitoring of temperature for windings and bearings
RE: 500hp motor - monitoring of temperature for windings and bearings
14 year old motors without any known problems mean someone made an excellent design. The problem is that your motors are like me they are not getting any younger. Having to replace all six motors over a one or two year period would be very expensive as compared to intervention / repair cost. I would tend to run wires or install a memory device that could be downloaded manually. Tracking changes and improving control will eventually save you money and headaches.
Actually on a forum named “ENG-TIPS” is there ever such a thing as having too much data?
Good Luck!
RE: 500hp motor - monitoring of temperature for windings and bearings
Winding RTDs may not save your windings,but it will alert you to a motor that may be Overheating for whatever reason.As for the bearings thermocouples,it may very well save your motor from catastrophic failure.(Rotor/Stator wipeout)
For about 10 years we have used bearing RTDs or TCs on all our motor bearings and windings on all motors over 250 hp `We have over 100,000 hp of connected drives,from 5 hp to 15,000 hp.I would not operate a motor without RTDs/TCs on the bearings.
A simple RTD/TC relay can be purchase to alarm/trip your drive when temperature rises abnormally.We have Multilins,
motor protector relays,which accept 10 or more RTD inputs.
The expense of an RTD/TC relay will pay for itself in a very short time.
GusD
RE: 500hp motor - monitoring of temperature for windings and bearings
RE: 500hp motor - monitoring of temperature for windings and bearings
Sorry, can't answer your standards question.
But I just wanted to add a little confirmation to your original comments when you initiated this thread. We recently designed and installed several 1250 hp, 3600 rpm, 4,000 volt induction motors driving intgral geared, high speed blowers (about 12,000 rpm). The units have been in operation for several months.
Last week one of the motors alarmed on the Non Drive End RTD, and the unit was shut down. Although this failure is related to a workmanship issue, the RTD's saved this motor from far more serious damage. The motors are also sleeve (babbit) bearings with "ring-oil" lubrication. There was a failure of the inner labyrinth seal which allowed the oil from the bearing reservoir to leak into the motor stator.
Just a reminder that things do go wrong.
RE: 500hp motor - monitoring of temperature for windings and bearings
I know of no standards that regulate the use of Winding or bearing RTDs.or Thermocouples.
The Alarm levels or trip levels we use are mostly Industry accepted values .Your motor winding class (B/F/H) would determine what alarm/trip level to use (eg 130/145 C).
As for motor bearings we use 80 C for alarm and 90 C to trip.This values are OK for most of your motors with Roller/Ball bearings.On our Journal (Babbitt) bearings we use a lower level of 70 C Alarm and 80 C trip .
GusD
RE: 500hp motor - monitoring of temperature for windings and bearings
http://engr.oregonstate.edu/~hori/WhiteP1_RG.doc
for: Design Guide for Electric Power Service Systems for Generating Systems
IEEE Standard 666 1991
RE: 500hp motor - monitoring of temperature for windings and bearings
RE: 500hp motor - monitoring of temperature for windings and bearings
SECTION 11.11.1.2 "Overtemperature Portection. Overtemperature conditions in motor windings due to moderate overloads should be detected and investiagated......conditions other than persistnetn overloads can cause a motor to overheat... poor ventalation, unbalanced voltages etc.... For large motors the principal means of protecting the stator windings is the RTD. .... can be connected to temperature monitoring devices or relay."
11.11.2.1 "Sleeve Bearing Overtemperature"... Temperatures above normally acceptable values should be annunciated".
The cost benefit arguments are good and most relevant for decision making, but are also subject to criticism due to subjective estimates of probabilities of failures etc. Having a standard on my side will go a long way to help me make my case.
RE: 500hp motor - monitoring of temperature for windings and bearings
RE: 500hp motor - monitoring of temperature for windings and bearings
http://www.maxim-ic.com/appnotes.cfm/appnote_number/270
for:
1. Analog-Signal Data Acquisition in Industrial Automation Systems
2. Integrated Data Acquisition System (DAS) solutions
3. A circuit that provides current to an RTD sensor and digitizes the resulting output
e
4. Etc.
RE: 500hp motor - monitoring of temperature for windings and bearings
You have the bearing temperature detectors,by not having the relaying in place to make use of these data is not the best option.Thermal detectors do work most of the time.
I understand your concern about having to spend some money to do this work, on the other hand ,my poor math tells me that one 500 Hp motor costs approx $50Grand,if the bearings wipe you are looking at a repair job of $10Grand.If the bearing fails and the rotor contacts the stator,you could be looking at a new rewind and a possible restacking of either rotor or stator or both.The cost of such a repair is about the same as a new motor.My math did not take in consideration the cost of an unplanned shutdown or restrict production.I am sure you know what the cost would be.
ElectPete,I don't know what motor protector relays you use,most of these relays accept temp inputs.There are reasonable cheap stand alone relays that accept inputs from RTDs ,Tcouples or whatever signals you have .they can be wired to alarm or trip as you wish.
All our motors over 100hp are equiped with RTDs or Tcouples.I also do vibration analyses on all of these motors,and I am very happy that we do have temp detectors that can save us from extremely costly repairs and some embarassement when we don't make the right call.10 years ago or so we went through the same discussions and I am sure that no one would go back to the old way.
If you have PLCs,with TCouple input cards ,they will accept these signals as well.
There are still some people that believe that failures will happen anyway,either due to fast bearing temp rise or any other reason.It is true that any protection can fail.We continue to use Overload relays /overcurrent relays and what have you,even so,sometimes motors do fail.
These devices have to be set properly.If you have journal bearings or any bearings on any particular motor,and these bearing run normally between 50 C and 70 C don't set your alarms at 100 C.I would set'em at 5 or 10 Deg over normal operating temp.A large margin of safety without nuisance trips.
A little history on a 1500hp sleeve bearing motor that I tested 3 months ago.Motor had new seals replaced and when I test run these type of motors,I always wait till bearing temp stabilize,which it did at around 55 DEg C in this case.I tagged motor and sent it to stores as a spare.
During the weekend,maintenance decided to use this same motor.
Mechanics installed motor ,aligned same and coupled it up.
After running for 1/2 hour the DEnd RTD tripped.The oil in the reservoir was quite black.They called me, and after I mention that I had tested this motor with no problems ,I suggested they look for a problem with coupling or alignment.The crew installing the motor, was not familiar with mechanical centers /magnectic centers concerns on these type of motors.They had shved the rotor against one thrust collar and didn't take long to over heat same.
We washed reservoir,replaced with new oil and restarted motor.No problem whatsoever.
My point>If we didn't have RTDs on the Bearings,it would overheat and destroy bearing at a minimum.That was our spare as well.On the final analyses it was a "very cheap RTD,Thermocouple or whatever device you care to use.
Take care
GusD
RE: 500hp motor - monitoring of temperature for windings and bearings
Also, some RTDs applied to motors annunciate only. They do not trip.
RE: 500hp motor - monitoring of temperature for windings and bearings
we can use the annunciation for whatever purpose we want.
We use mostly Multilins ,PLCs or simple stand alone RTD or TC Relays. All the Multilins ,PLCs or RElays come with integral relays or output contacts that can be used for whatever function you want.Normally we set bearing alarms at 80 Deg C and Trips at 90 DegC.Believe me they do trip!
If you only want to annunciate they will do that too.
JBartos ,in any case,even if the only thing I could get is annunciation it would still be better than nothing at all.
GusD
RE: 500hp motor - monitoring of temperature for windings and bearings
RE: 500hp motor - monitoring of temperature for windings and bearings
we can use the annunciation for whatever purpose we want.
///True.\\\
We use mostly Multilins ,PLCs or simple stand alone RTD or TC Relays. All the Multilins ,PLCs or RElays come with integral relays or output contacts that can be used for whatever function you want.
///True.\\\
Normally we set bearing alarms at 80 Deg C and Trips at 90 DegC.
///True.\\\
Believe me they do trip!
///Never disputed. That is why I indicated that some RTDs annunciate only. This is convenient to know if the temperature stabilizes a little above 80C for the mentioned setting above. It can also drop below 80C and there is no problem. However, if there is some catastrophic failure, temperature will climb quickly from 80C to 90C. There may or may not be much what can be done about it.\\\
RE: 500hp motor - monitoring of temperature for windings and bearings
Electricpete
measuring the winding temperature with an RTD is to late.
I would recommend reading this.
http://www.selinc.com/techpprs/6024.pdf
The SEL 701 and 749M relays have a pretty good model for measuring heat in a motor by intergrating the I squared T over time. It's different than that on the Multins and some other relays I looked at.
It has inputs for bearing and stator RTDs but I think measuring the heat in the motor is better.
The relay has an output that can run a meter as well as control. I have an application where I want to install a "temperatrue gague" on an opperators panel. The analogy to driving a car fits pretty close. In this case the operator controls the process. He can decide to feed more stock into the crusher which will load the motor more. If he sees the motor is hot he can slack off a little. It's just like driving your car up a hill, when you see the temperarue rise you slow down or shift gears.
The relays have an input for an ambient temperature RTD and adjust the model as the temperature.
I am not pimping for SEL. It just happens this relay was a perfect solution we just ran into.
RE: 500hp motor - monitoring of temperature for windings and bearings
For my particular situation, I am not looking to upgrade the sensitivity/protection for tripping funcitons. These are safety-function motors and the fail-safe situation is to not trip.
As far as modeling motor temperature, I'm sure those guys at SEL are very smart, but is their model supposed to be better than reality? RTD measures actual temperature after all...not a prediction. But it's a peripheral issue that doesn't seem to affect my present situation.
I believe that for most situations of this large a motor it would be a no-brainer as Gus has suggested that existing bearing and motor temperature devices should be monitored (alarm and indication). However the switchgear and computer are both a large distance away up to 300' and 3 floors. Also this is happens to be a facility where the cost of even simple modications is very large. Off the top of my head I believe that for all 6 motors to simply connect these to process the paperwork and complete the connection to our plant computer system would cost somewhere from $20,000-$50,000.
RE: 500hp motor - monitoring of temperature for windings and bearings
Thanks to all for a lot of good advice. I think I have what I need to make my case. The most valuable piece of new information I gained to help me make my case was the industry standard IEEE666 (thx jbartos).