Routine maintenance filters

Maintenance "indicators" are available to help facility staff determine when routine maintenance is required. For example, air filters are often neglected (sometimes due to reasons such as difficult access) and fail to receive maintenance at proper intervals. Installation of an inexpensive manometer, an instrument used to monitor the pressure loss across a filter bank, can give an immediate indication of filter condition without having to open the unit to visually observe the actual filter. Computerized systems are available that can prompt staff to carry out maintenance activities at the proper intervals. Some of these programs can be connected to building equipment so that a signal is transmitted to staff if a piece of equipment malfunctions. Individual areas can be monitored for temperature, air movement, humidity, and carbon dioxide, and new sensors are constantly entering the market. 

As with any mechanical equipment, condensers should never be located where they are difficult of access, since there will then be less chance of routine maintenance being carried out. Periodic maintenance of a condenser is limited to attention to the moving parts - fans, motors, belts, pumps - and cleaning of water filters, if fitted. 

Sludge Removal. Metal fines can catalyze reactions that lead to decomposition of the solution, and sludge buildup. Paint chips can absorb solution and swell, forming a viscous sludge. Routine maintenance should be performed to remove sludge. Continuous filtering is often helpful. 

Mechanical support services—heat, air, electricity, water, sanitary drains, holding tanks, scrubbing systems, and filter banks—occupy much space and require large expenditures for support and maintenance contracts. Maintenance support and laboratory staff must cooperate to minimize disruption of laboratory activities during routine and non-routine maintenance. Conflicts and downtime can be reduced by careful scheduling of routine maintenance for equipment such as wet scrubbers, filter banks, and motors. 

Elimination of dryer maintenance. Dryers are high maintenance items with clogged filters, heater element burnout, and contaminated desiccant beds. Even in shops with good routine maintenance programs, it is common to operate with ineffective dryers for long periods before they are noticed. When this happens, quality goes down, and scrap accumulates. 

Even the best-engineered and most carefully installed ventilation system requires routine maintenance. Blocked or plugged air intakes and exhausts, as well as control system calibration and operation, can alter the performance of the total ventilation system. Filters become loaded, belts loosen, bearings require lubrication, motors need attention, ducts corrode, and minor components fail. These malfunctions, individually or collectively, can affect overall ventilation performance. 

Note As a matter of routine maintenance, this filter should be inspected frequently. 

In Plant 3 exposure monitoring efforts were focused on three routine maintenance events including inlet gas filter change out (downstream from the slug catcher), pipeline scrapper receiving event, area monitoring around the evaporation ponds. 

Routine maintenance should include repair of any damaged ducting, checking filters, examination of the fan blades to ensure that there has been no dust accumulation, tightening all drive belts and a general lubrication of moving parts. 

Air cleaning (dust collection) can be cost effective for LVHV systems handling valuable dusts. Care must be taken when handling potentially toxic dusts from air cleaners. Regular, routine reconditioning of fabric filters (e.g., by automatic shaking or pneumatic pulsing) is impottant. This can be accomplished on a set maintenance schedule or as a function of pressure drop across the fabric filter. It is not recommended to recirculate airflow back to the workplace because of the low air volume and potential hazards in the event of filter failures. 

Combustion equipment can be set to give optimum efficiency at the time of commissioning but this condition will not be maintained. Wear and tear on control valves, partial blockage of filters, sooting of surfaces, etc. will all cause a fall in efficiency. To counter this, regular maintenance is desirable, and must include routine flue analysis and burner adjustment. 

Expertise required to operate One of the objectives for using microprocessor-based predictive maintenance systems is to reduce the expertise required to acquire error-free, useful vibration and process data from a large population of machinery and systems within a plant. The system should not require user input to establish maximum amplitude, measurement bandwidths, filter settings, or allow free-form data input. All of these functions force the user to be a trained analyst and will increase both the cost and time required to routinely acquire data from plant equipment. Many of the microprocessors on the market provide easy, menu-driven measurement routes that lead the user through the process of acquiring accurate data. The ideal system should require a single key input to automatically acquire, analyze, alarm and store all pertinent data from plant equipment. This type of system would enable an unskilled user to quickly and accurately acquire all of the data required for predictive maintenance. 

Within a typical world-class industrial commodity chemical company the annual cost of maintenance is 3 to 6 percent of the asset replacement costs. A number of significant maintenance activities require very little interruption of continuously operating chemical plants. Everyday maintenance activities that may be accomplished on a routine basis include repairs to a spare pump or spare compressor after it has been properly isolated and cleared of fluids, and overhaul of a fully spared filter or painting. 

Routine scheduled maintenance activities at Poelkapelle include the removal of condensate water from the cold plasma oxidizer, cleaning of piping, and removal of filter dust. These and other activities take about 30 minutes per day, an additional 3 hours per week, and yet another 3 hours per month. 

The key to baghouse maintenance is the frequent and routine inspection of the filter bags. All bag units have a finite lifetime. Typical causes of bag failure are [42] ... 

A strict preventive maintenance schedule for the exchange of the filters/resins and connecting tubing as well as a routine quality control protocol for finished water purity verification is essential to laboratories producing in-house water. 

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