Mechanical Technology November 2015

⎪ Proactive maintenance, lubrication and contamination management ⎪

all lead to unplanned downtime, costly repairs and production losses, are easily preventable using our quality range of shaft alignment instruments,” notes SKF maintenance and lubrication product manager, Eddie Martens. Mokse Engineering is successfully us- ing the TKSA 11 for accurate horizontal shaft alignment of small to medium sized machines. “It started receiving more and more requests for larger jobs, but realised that a tool capable of aligning bigger ma- chines was required, and because they were so satisfied with the performance of the TKSA 11 unit, they approached SKF for a solution,” Martens relates. “We demonstrated the TKSA 51 to Mokse’s engineers, who were immedi- ately impressed that it could accommo- date alignment on soft foot (a distortion in a mounting frame that a motor may stand on) as well as thermal growth (caused by thermal expansion),” con- tinues Martens. “Upon hearing that the measuring distance between the heads was 5.0 m, the customer was sold on the TKSA 51,” he says. The compact TKSA 51 shaft align- ment tool provides high measurement flexibility and performance suitable for entry-level to expert alignment jobs. Designed to work with the shaft align- ment TKSA 51 App on a tablet or smart phone, this intuitive tool is easy to use and requires no special training. Martens adds that SKF can provide basic product knowledge to an experienced operator as well as a two day laser alignment training course on site or in at the SKF training centre situated in Boksburg, South Africa. The included accessories of the TKSA 51 makes the instrument ideally suited for a wide range of alignment applications such as motors, drives, fans, pumps, gearboxes, etc. The portable units do not require installation and are supplied with a two year warranty. “Due to the reliable and effective performance of our TKSA 11 instrument, we were able to offer the best solution in the TKSA 51 and assist this longstanding SKF customer to expand their capabili- ties by being able to handle larger jobs, improve turnaround time and grow the business,” concludes Martens. SKF is represented in more than 130 countries and has around 15 000 distributor locations worldwide. Annual sales in 2014 were SEK 70 975-mil- lion and the company employs 48 593 people. q

Above: The TKSA 51 connects wirelessly to an associated App, to provide a live 3D view of the measuring units. Operators can rotate the virtual machine at their convenience in all directions, making the alignment as intuitive as possible. Left: The TKSA 51 is a new intuitive App- powered shaft alignment tool from SKF. receiving automated commands from the Wireless Sensor Device Manager software. This software initiates the measurement and processing circuits to take data and transmit it back over the network. If a node is unable to receive signals directly from the WirelessHART gateway, it will, instead, send and receive its data through a nearby node that can pass the data to and from the gateway – forming the mesh network. Once data is collected, the Wireless­ HART gateway communicates with the Wireless Sensor Device Manager software supplied by SKF. Device Manager then automatically exports the data into SKF @ptitude Analyst where a plant engineer can analyse the data and determine a course of action. The Wireless Machine Condition Sensor has been developed to be fully compatible with the established SKF @ptitude Analyst software suite, a comprehensive diagnostic and analytic software package. ATEX Zone 0 certification makes the product ideally suited for use in hazard- ous environments typically found in for example, petrochemical, oil and gas and pharmaceutical plants. The unit combines both a sensor and router node into one compact and battery-operated unit the size of a typi-

Designed to suit hazardous environments, the

SKF Wireless Machine Condition Sensor provides seamless condition monitoring for large plants in hard-to-reach locations. cal industrial accelerometer. The sensor operates in a low power consumption mode, allowing the battery to last for years in the field. SKF’s Wireless Machine Condition Sensor offers users a number of im- portant benefits including an improved maintenance programme, reduced main- tenance and installation costs, as well as enhanced employee and machine safety. Mokse Engineering Enterprises, an armature winding specialist and one of SKF South Africa’s key customer, was so impressed with the capabilities of the TKSA 11 shaft alignment tool that they had no hesitation in purchasing the new TKSA 51 to enable larger machines to be handled. Shaft misalignment contributes sig- nificantly to premature machine failure. It is estimated that misaligned shafts can be responsible for up to 50% of all machine failures. A machine placed in service with less than optimal shaft alignment can lead to poor machine per- formance, increased power consumption, increased noise and vibration, premature bearing wear, accelerated deterioration of gaskets, packing and mechanical seals as well as higher coupling wear rates. “These expensive scenarios, which can A successful application in South Africa

Mechanical Technology — November 2015

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