Can iba detect the next compressor failure? : Condition-based monitoring applied to nitrogen compressor – a case study

Sammanfattning: Production of steel powder is done by atomization of a molten steel stream. Atomization is done by feeding high pressure nitrogen gas through nozzles, creating jets of gas which scatter the molten steel stream into powder. The steel powder falls through the atomization tower whilst it cools and solidifies. Finally, the steel powder is transported for further processing. The compressor is used for two main purposes, to compress the nitrogen gas to desired pressure and enable recycling of nitrogen gas. As nitrogen is inert and do not react with its surrounding, the gas can be recycled. Filtering nitrogen gas from the atomization process, one is able to reuse the gas, which is led to the inlet side of a compressor. A closed loop is thus created which is economically important. In 2021 a major compressor failure occurred, which caused large production losses. iba systems is a commercially available product extensively utilized in the Swedish steel industry for data acquisition, production monitoring and generating key performance indicators. Therefore, this thesis investigates what modules and functionality iba systems have to offer. Process and machine signals are studied to assess both their utility in predicting machine failure and relevant iba modules for the predictive maintenance purposes, based on a literature review. This thesis shows the possibility to implement an anomaly detection to detect abnormal behavior, related to historic compressor failure. Estimating when maintenance is needed is possible but requires implementation of new sensors to obtain useful information, mainly vibration data from machinery. Anomaly detection is implemented using ibaAnalyzer. Additional analysis is done in Matlab.