José Torres Farinha

Time replacement optimization models for urban transportation buses with indexation to fleet reserve

Res_eng:An efficient management of physical assets in general and the urban transportation buses in particular, has as objective the optimization of its Life Cycle Cost (LCC), being the optimization of its maintenance and the determination of the right moment of its withdrawal or its renewal, essential elements for optimization of the capital investments. These aspects are related to the determination of the optimal dimension of the fleet reserve, aiming the maximization of its availability and the investment minimization. This can be reached through several algorithms that ought to be in consideration aspects like the maintenance costs, reseller cost, and inflation, among others. This is reached trough the adequate maintenance policies, being these scheduled and or on-condition predictive or any kind of planned ones. This type of decisions are determinant to maximize the LCC and, by consequence, the dimension of reserve fleet. It is through this perspective that the identification of the right moment of replacement or total renewal of an asset can be a strategic element in the competitiveness of the organizations by reducing the costs that can come from there. The validation of the management models to be implemented will be done in the road transports sector of passengers’ transportation and the models and the results have the potential to help this strategic sector in the global economy.

Electric Motors Maintenance Planning From Its Operating Variables

Abstract The maintenance planning corresponds to an approach that seeks to maximize the availability of equipment and, consequently, increase the levels of competitiveness of companies by increasing production times. This paper presents a maintenance planning based on operating variables (number of hours worked, duty cycles, number of revolutions) to maximizing the availability of operation of electrical motors. The reading of the operating variables and its sampling is done based on predetermined sampling cycles and subsequently is made the data analysis through time series algorithms aiming to launch work orders before reaching the variables limit values. This approach is supported by tools and technologies such as logical applications that enable a graphical user interface for access to relevant information about their Physical Asset HMI (Human Machine Interface), including the control and supervision by acquisition through SCADA (Supervisory Control And data acquisition) data, also including the communication protocols among different logical applications.

Integrating low cost platforms on electrical power systems for control and condition monitoring

Nowadays, the electric power systems play a fundamental role in our society, since the electric energy transport until the final consumer. Under this context, the substations are an essential component of these systems, because they operate as a point of interconnection between the electrical transport networks and the energy distribution systems. Due to the importance of this type of facilities, the maintenance of substations is a strategic aspect of this process, to guarantee their availability and a rational life cycle cost. By consequence, the automation applied in the substations corresponds to an added value for flexible control and assets condition monitoring, allowing the guarantee of reliability, efficiency, and quality of the energy delivered to the end user. In order to improve the control systems, it is necessary to provide these facilities with technologies that offer interoperability and critical time control of assets. The Industrial Ethernet communication protocols correspond to an alternative within the automation and maintenance tools implemented in the electric distribution networks; this type of protocols stand out in a positive way in the market due to its communications in real-time, high data transmission rates between physical assets, use of flexible network topologies for communication between assets, and a large number of nodes connected in the network. This paper presents a simple and reliable way to integrate Industrial Ethernet communication protocols through the use of low cost electronics platforms such as, for example, Arduino, Raspberry PI, BeagleBone, among others existing in the market. These protocols integrate friendly HMI (Human Machine Interface) and SCADA (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition) tools. It also presents a system that has the capacity to make the communication among the different physical assets through the FINS (Factory Interface Network Service) protocol via Ethernet network, being this system implemented in UNIX operating systems. This approach also permits to simulate the behavior of a PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) from the viewpoint of the interaction with OMRON industrial equipment, remapping its memory and enabling the acquisition of data from various devices via Industrial Ethernet protocols, such as Ethernet/IP, Modbus/TCP, POWERLINK, among others.

(Legal) maintenance plan for building’s energy performance

Res_eng:The EU Directive 2002/91/CE, regarding building’s energy performance was transposed into national law in 2006, recently updated by Legislative Decree 118/2013 which substantiates: Energy Certification System of Buildings (SCE), Regulation of Energy Performance of Residential Buildings (SHR) and Regulation of Energy Performance of Commerce and Services Buildings (RECS). This points to an evaluation of energy performance of buildings based on the thermal behavior and efficiency of the systems, and in the installation, operation and maintenance of technical systems. The TIM (Installation and Maintenance Technician) must perform several maintenance activities related to buildings and technical systems, including: maintenance management; planning; recording occurrences; details of tasks and operations; and other actions and documentation necessary for that purpose. The RECS establishes rules to be observed in building’s maintenance, to promote energy efficiency and indoor air quality. A maintenance plan must: be initiated at the design stage; be put in practice after the completion of the installation of building systems; and to be accomplished during the building’s lifetime. This paper proposes to present a working methodology, to be undertaken by TIM, leading to compliance with legal requirements for maintenance of Commerce and Services Buildings in assessment of the energy performance.

Predictive maintenance!: to do or let die

Res_eng:In a competitive world all equipment must maximize its availability. The predictive maintenance objective is to follow the evolution of its use and the tear that results from the dynamics of components. Nowadays, with the evolution of technology it is possible to check and detect almost every problem. In critical organizations, like paper industry, chemical industry, oil industry, and so on, it is necessary to follow the “health” of the most part of equipment in general, and the vital ones in particular, because even small errors can cause a lot of monetary damages. This type of companies need to check every detail of their assets. The majority of the companies use a lot of technology to evaluate the condition of each critical component. They want to know the value of on-condition variables like vibration monitoring offline, vibration monitoring online, thermograph, oil analysis, and so on. However, having lot of offers of equipment for diagnosis and a lot of offers of maintenance services by specialized companies, the factories didn’t increase the predictive maintenance level because they aren´t sensitive enough to do that. The pressure that the international economic market has in companies causes factories to work every minute they can before equipment and components break. Companies try to delay the time of each maintenance intervention, but this delay, when it is done without on-condition accompaniment increases the total maintenance costs, which increases the total value of equipment maintenance, both direct and indirect. In this case, the predictive maintenance can have an important role to increase the production time. These are the main topics that will be handled in the paper industry, with focus on vibration monitoring applied in a paper factory, including maintenance analysis versus cost analysis.

The Convergence between Predictive Maintenance and Augmented Reality to Aid Renewable Energy Equipment Availability

The maintenance area makes permanent challenges to research and develop new methodologies and later to transfer that knowledge to optimize the maintenance interventions and the equipment performance. The introduction of new technologies in the maintenance field, like 3D models, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Augmented Reality, permitting simplify the interventions, help training, making remote interventions and more easily locating geographically the technical assets. The focus of the present paper is the wind generators field where the distance between the maintenance management department and each wind generators farm emphasizes the importance of precedent technologies. Additionally, the easy location of each wind generator is a major question that is easily answered through GIS (Geographic Information System). This paper deals with wind generators, through a methodology that aims to optimize the cycles of production and, consequently, reduce the production of energy based on fossil resources. The methodology presented is based on-condition techniques with prediction. The new developments will be later incorporated in the information system, because they are developed in a modular way, in order to add new capacities to an integrated maintenance management system called SMIT (Terology Integrated Modular System). This system was designed to be the base information system, and can incorporate new tools in order to be always up-to-date. Its implementation is through client-server, browser or cloud computing, but also having the capacity to receive new tools, as GIS, 3D models or Augmented Reality. With these new tools and, particularly the last one, it makes possible improving the quality of maintenance interventions, minimize their intervention times, and expanding knowledge to a larger number of maintenance technicians through the possibility of training in a virtual environment. This means that will help to use less hardware and energy resources, including the equipment themselves and, by consequence, it also helps to increase the environmental perspective.