Whether you are inspecting insulators, transformers, switchgear or high voltage powerlines, you need to be sure that you can spot any potential problems quickly and early. Partial discharge that goes unchecked can cause blackouts, fires, explosions or even death from arc flashes. Fluke’s new game-changing technology improves your preventive maintenance routines and efficiency without operation downtime.

While ensuring worker safety is always the paramount concern, partial discharge also carries a significant monetary risk. Depending on the scale of operation, having equipment go offline can cost millions of dollars per hour of downtime.

Preventative partial discharge/corona inspection, maintenance and cleaning have a proven record of being the best practices to reduce these risks. The Fluke ii910 Precision Acoustic Imager is the perfect tool for high voltage electricians, electrical test engineers, and grid maintenance teams that are constantly inspecting and maintaining power distribution and industrial high voltage equipment.

Fluke’s innovative SoundSight™ technology allows users to ‘see’ sounds by capturing sound frequencies through an inbuilt acoustic array of tiny sensitive microphones which generate a spectrum of decibel levels per frequency.

Based on this output, the algorithm calculates a coloured sound image, known as a SoundMap™, which is superimposed  over a visible light image of the equipment to show the exact location of where the ultrasonic vibration came from.

With a frequency range of 2-100kHz, and a 7” LCD touchscreen, the Fluke ii910 lets users easily and quickly manipulate the frequency filter range. This helps the device filter out noisy outdoor environments and loud production noises in industrial areas.

Keeping the maintenance team safe is the top priority for any maintenance or substation manager. With a detection distance of up to 120m, the team can operate safely from a distance and reduce the risk of being exposed to potential arcing or even explosions as a result of flashovers.

Key areas to scan for partial discharge include transformers, high voltage power lines and coils, switchgear, arrestors, breakers and capacitors.

For industrial plants and facilities, compressed air, gas and vacuum systems are a vital source of converted energy. They run machines, tools, robotics, lasers, product handling systems and much more.

Yet many compressed air, gas and vacuum systems are often compromised by wear and poor maintenance practices, which contribute to the greatest waste of all – ever-present leaks. These leaks are frequently hidden behind machines, at connection points, overhead in fixed pipes, or in cracked pipes and worn hoses.

The waste from these leaks adds up quickly and can ultimately lead to downtime. Mainstream leak detection practices are, unfortunately, quite primitive and still employed to this day.

An age-old method is to listen for hissing sounds, which are virtually impossible to hear in many production environments. Another method is to apply soapy water to the area of the suspected leak, which is messy and can create potential slipping hazards.

These methods also require the operator to be close to the equipment to find leaks and are only possible during shutdown when it is quiet enough to hear the leaks. This makes these outdated methods difficult to implement, especially in hard-to-reach areas such as ceilings or behind equipment.

The ability to visually scan large areas from up to 50-120m away with the Fluke ii910 Precision Acoustic Imager can help expedite leak detection at manufacturing plants that rely heavily on pneumatics.

This significantly reduces the hours of labour spent on the task in addition to saving the electrical energy required to run compressors to compensate for leaks and extend equipment life.

Users can quickly adjust frequency filters on the touch screen to cut out loud equipment/production/vehicle noises and only display the sounds of relevant leaks. Efficiently fixing and repairing leaks can also lead to substantial cost reductions for air-dependent businesses.

Key areas where leaks can be found in such facilities include couplings, hoses, tubes, fittings, threaded pipe joints, traps, valves, flanges, air lines and pneumatic holding lines.

This Sponsored Editorial, is brought to you by Fluke. For more information or to book a demonstration of the Fluke ii910 Acoustic Imager with a Fluke Specialist, please visit http://fluke.co/ii910UE721.

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