Machinery Overview
The expeller press extracts oil from seeds, nuts, or other plant materials. It works by applying high pressure through a screw or worm shaft that rotates inside a tightly fitting barrel.
The press crushes and compresses the raw material, forcing the oil out through small openings while the dry residue, which is called cake or meal, is expelled separately.
Its power train comprises :
Motor: 545kW, 4-pole motor, VFD
Gearbox: i=18:1
Expeller press: ± 100RPM
Monitoring Devices and Software Set-up
I-care reliability engineers placed Wi-care™ vibration sensors on the different assets to monitor the entire setup’s vibration, impact, and temperature.
The engineers placed two vibration sensors on the motor and four others on the gearbox to detect potential faults. Due to its complexity, the expeller had two sensors.
Once set up, Wi-care sensors send machinery health data to I-see™, our AI-powered analytics platform. Its role is to meticulously categorize the data points and identify whether they indicate healthy operation, a potential problem, or a critical alarm. The AI-generated insights are compiled into reports, providing a clear view of the motor, gearbox, and press health trends.
The I-care analysts then review these reports to identify potential issues and make recommendations as detailed in the steps below.
Detailed analysis
Step 1 | Issue detection
The I-see dashboard highlighted an issue on the expeller gearbox, showing several consecutive ‘high’ readings.
This alert prompted an immediate, detailed analysis.
Step 2 | Analysis
The following graphic revealed a significant increase in vibration over a month, especially in the lower frequency range (0-500Hz).
The analysis revealed a harmonic family at 8.82X, with 1X sidebands corresponding to the intermediate gearbox speed (405 RPM).
The analyst recognized this signature as a textbook pattern of an inner race defect, confirmed by its alignment with the theoretical Ball Pass Frequency of Inner Race for the SKF 22328 bearing.
Step 3 | Recommendation
Within days of the alert, based on the vibration signature evolution, the I-care expert recommended replacing the intermediate-shaft bearings.
Until the maintenance staff intervened, the expert shadowed the asset to manage the risk.
Step 4 | Monitoring
During the monitoring period prior to intervention, vibration amplitude continued to increase, confirming the urgency of action
Step 5 | Replacement
The maintenance operator replaced the bearings a few days after the initial detection, preventing further damage and a costly production failure.
Step 6 | Effectiveness
After the bearing replacement, the distinctive inner race defect vibration disappeared, as evidenced by comparing the vibration data recorded a few days before and after the intervention. This confirmed the effectiveness of the action.
Step 7 | Monitoring
Monitoring over the next month revealed an increase in vibration at the gear mesh frequency between the 1st and 2nd shafts.
As a result of these new vibrations, a visual inspection conducted a few weeks later revealed gear damage.
The root cause was traced back to the replacement of the entire intermediate shaft months earlier with a component from a different spare gearbox. Since each shaft possesses unique mechanical characteristics, this substitution altered the system’s vibration behavior.
However, a detailed analysis confirmed stability, allowing the system to operate safely for several more months until a full gearbox replacement.
Results
$55,000 Saved with I-care’s Early Breakdown Prevention
When one press is out of service, production capacity is reduced to 75%, corresponding to a loss of $1,850 per hour. Knowing that replacing a gearbox takes 1.5 days and the machine runs about 20 hours per day, we can estimate the production loss of an unexpected gearbox failure between $48,000 and $63,000, without considering the potential loss of the gearbox itself if maintenance operators can’t repair it.
The defaults identified in this case could have gone unnoticed without the I-care predictive maintenance solution. The breakdown would have led to significant downtime and costly repairs. Instead, early detection, thanks to Wi-care sensors, I-see monitoring, timely recommendations, and proactive communication by I-care experts, ensured continuity and avoided operational disruption.
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