Using the CoCo-90X to ensure safe and reliable lift bridge operations

Lift bridges, limited in number but still a vital part of America’s infrastructure, are located throughout the country. Concentrated more heavily in the eastern half of the United States, lift bridges are commonly found near communities situated in and around river-ways.

Many lift bridges are aging as much of the United States infrastructure is, however, that does not keep them from providing a necessary solution for the intersection of a river and a road or railway.

Lift bridges are large mechanical masterpieces. They contain a series of equipment found in mechanical textbooks including counterweights, gear boxes, electric motors, and rope sheaves to name a few. The inner workings of a lift bridge function to raise and lower a section of the bridge allowing for larger river vessels to pass unimpeded by overhead bridge spans.

Like other critical mechanical devices, lift bridges find themselves the subject of vibration monitoring. Unlike large factories, refineries, or power plants where there are tens if not hundreds of motor driven components, lift bridges often get overlooked when it comes to routine vibration data collection because they do not fall within a large number of machines that require yearly monitoring. To add to this the complexity and sometimes unique set of equipment within a lift bridge can deter standard vibration monitoring outfits from taking on the job of vibration monitoring lift bridges.

The result of a lack of routine monitoring combined with unique one-off equipment is that lift bridges and other slow speed machines can exhibit problems more sophisticated and exclusive than standard motor driven equipment. Simple vibration rules may not easily be adapted to the issues found within lift bridges and thus a specialty diagnostics provider like IVC Technologies in Lebanon, OH would need to be called in to collect long time waveform data for more in-depth analysis.

Using purpose driven equipment like the CoCo-90X, an advanced battery powered dynamic signal analyzer that scales up to 16 input channels, IVC Technologies can collect more input channels than traditional walk around data collectors and can record time streams for several minutes or longer to observe and capture data from the entire raising and lowering of the bridge in one data set. With 16 channels, vibration data can be collected on the motors, gearboxes, and sheave bearings synchronously. This both reduces the overall collection time and increases the ability to properly access the synchronous data.

Traditional walk around data collectors rely on short time frames to capture and diagnose problems with rotating machinery. This works great when a machine is running at a couple thousand RPM. However, when machinery such as rope sheaves and slow speed bearings runs far slower, the problem is more difficult to capture with short frames of time waveform data. Traditional walk around analyzers are also limited in the number of pick up points they can capture. The CoCo-90X is a dynamic signal analyzer that provides greater insight into the problem with many pickup points and longtime waveform data capture – up to hours of data if desired. This provides the ability to analyze the data in both the frequency domain, as well as the time domain where slower speed mechanical issues can be detected.

An improved and complete diagnosis is the outcome when experienced and advanced diagnostic professionals get involved. A diagnostic report that only uncovers half of the issues facing the owner and operator of large mechanical systems is unsettling. Avoid overlooking issues by leveraging experienced teams using the right test equipment. Critical infrastructure in the United States is certainly long in the tooth and this only underscores the need for specialty vibration diagnostics providers like IVC Technologies and advanced diagnostic tools like the CoCo-90X.

For more information about diagnostic services please contact IVC Technologies at (800) 525-1269 or email: ivc-info@ivctechnologies.com

For more information about the CoCo-90X please contact Crystal Instruments at (408) 986-8880 or email: info@go-ci.com