Maintworld Magazine 3/2021

PARTNER ARTICLE
The Way you Install your
Rotating Machinery
is the Way it Will Perform!
Because of my many years of experience in the field of installation
and maintenance of rotating equipment I can say that installation is
a fundamental thing. But why is this phase so important?
WELL, BECAUSE THE INSTALLATION HAS
DIRECT IMPACT ON THE MACHINERY,
and it will determine operating conditions,
performance, and life cycle cost.
Basically, the way you install your rotating
equipment is the way it will perform.
And personally, I always ask myself
why companies buy a million-dollar
equipment and let unexperienced
installers do the installation. Then, they
spend another million dollars in condition
monitoring watching them fail.
Don’t get me wrong; condition
monitoring is extremely important to
understand what is happening to the
machines and detect an early failure.
But the fact is that most of the failures
occur due to poor installation and design.
Here, let’s focus on the installation
phase of rotating machinery.
What do we expect from our
machinery?
• Reliable operation - We expect
our rotating equipment to deliver
its intended purpose or service
without failure.
• High performance - We expect
our equipment to perform as per
design.
• Long service life - If our equipment
has been designed for 20 or 30
years of operation, that is what we
want to achieve.
• Low maintenance cost - We expect
not to spend any additional money
after the investment has been
made.
ROMAN MEGELA,
Senior Reliability
Engineer,
Easy-Laser AB
Responsibilities towards the
installation
Communication, Procedures, and Integrity.
These are responsibilities which are
so important in the installation phase. Let
me explain:
Communication – It is a must to assure
proper communication among the Design,
Engineering, and Installation teams.
We know there are constant challenges to
keep the installation work to be on time
and within specifications. The teams must
have constant communication to be able
to solve any difficulties or changes. In the
real world not everything fits as it fits on
the drawings. I think many of you have
experienced this, right?
Procedures - Installation procedures
must be created according to design specifications
and every member of the team
must be familiar with them. Depending on
which industry, the procedures will differ
from each other. It is not the same thing to
perform installation on the nuclear plant
compared to pharmaceutical industry.
There should always be a reference to
which specific standard belong to the
site where the installation is taking
place. API Recommended Practices for
Machinery Installation and Installation
Design (API 686) are perfect foundation to
start with.
Integrity - Integrity is an important part
of the installation phase and it starts with
Safety. Everyone who participates in the
installation must go through safety training.
Specific trainings must be performed such
as working in heights, confined spaces, fire
protection or chemicals handling. Breaking
the safety rules will put the project behind
the schedule therefore it is very important
to follow them.
Always do things in the right
order
The installation of the rotating equipment
must follow certain order. The order of the
installation procedures is designed always
to start from the base. Foundations are the
cornerstone of the entire installation. They
are designed to hold rotating machinery and
transfer and dissipate stresses and dynamic
forces produced by pulsations and processes.
Therefore, special attention must be paid to
the foundations. They must be flat, coplanar,
and levelled. If we skip the order of the installation
procedures, we will not be able to
complete further steps and not achieve reliable
operation of our rotating equipment.
Finally, all the work must be properly documented
during the process by creating digital
reports to be able to review and compare
the values and data. This is important for the
references because further work will depend
on the results.
If you, like me think this is super important
and interesting, let’s connect on LinkedIn,
and we can learn more from each other!
28 maintworld 3/2021