Listen to latest Rooted in Reliability podcast on “Understanding Thermal Growth”
The Rooted in Reliability podcast is a weekly Maintenance and Reliability podcast covering common industry challenges and what you can learn from them. Each episode dives deeper into critical issues and explains who you can begin correcting theses maintenance flaws today. Sharing new tips and techniques to help you achieve industry best practice and shining a light on widely debated maintenance topics with special guest experts.
In the most recent episode, host James Kovacevic, of HP Reliability, interviews John Lambert, President of BENCHMARK PDM, in Toronto, Canada. John has 30+ years experience in machinery installation and condition monitoring. He has trained many people over the years on these subjects. Below is an excerpt from James’ post:
In this episode, the thermal growth and the understanding of the phenomenon how it occurs and how to prevent and calculate it is being discussed by John Lambert. So, first of all, we have to know what actually the thermal growth is. The answer is simple. This phenomenon occurs when the rotating machines get hot due to the difference in temperature and they start to expand in every direction. As these machines are mostly metal so their thermal growth is explained by the coefficient of linear thermal expansion that is already known for many different materials.
Now what happens is that organizations don t do the necessary calculations even though these are pretty simple. You can calculate it easily if you have the coefficient of thermal expansion of the material, to what temperature it is to be heated, and the length of material. Their product is what helps you to apply the calculations that you have made for thermal growth and help you prevent the thermal expansion in your machines. You should not think of it as a common issue because it can get critical if you do not address it properly. Measuring it not only makes your shaft alignment better, it also compensates for losses on a regular basis.
You can read the rest of Mr. Kovacevic’s blog post right here.
Listen to the new podcast here:
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