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| | | | Thermal Imaging Electrical Service Contracting Industry
Application Notes and Case Studies
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Electrical unbalance can be caused by several different sources: a power delivery problem, low voltage on one leg, or an insulation resistance breakdown inside the motor windings. |
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Using a handheld thermal imager, you can capture infrared temperature measurements of a motor's temperature profile as a two dimensional image. |
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Thermal images of electrical systems can indicate the operating condition of the equipment in those systems. |
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This article reviews the fundamental causes of overheating, as well as, the tests and tools commonly used to uncover overheating problems. |
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Problems with surge protection and lightning arrestors leaking to ground and current tracking over insulators can also be detected using thermography. However, finding such problems requires the capture of subtle temperature differences often under difficult-to-monitor conditions. |
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While many people in the power generation industry are familiar with annual infrared thermography surveys as part of PdM, the coal plant in this case study uses a thermal imager year round. There are two differences in their approach. |
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In energy audits of homes and other buildings, technicians use blower doors in conjunction with thermal imagers. The blowers create positive or negative pressures within interior envelopes, making leaks much more apparent in thermal images. |
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One set of tools for monitoring equipment in substations is Fluke's handheld thermal imagers. Thermal imagers capture two-dimensional representations of the apparent surface temperatures of electrical components and other objects. |
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Until three years ago, the only thermography performed at the specialty paper mill featured in this case study was done by a consulting firm that inspected the switchgear once a year. |
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Most facilities need to get maximum life out of their motors, because they are expensive to replace in terms of both money and labor. Electrical, insulation resistance and thermal measurement are three tests that can troubleshoot motors, drives, and associated electrical panels and prolong their operational lifetime. |
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Normally, people in industry use level indicators to tell how much product is inside a tank. So why do so many of them also use thermal imagers (infrared cameras) to do the same thing? It's because of the horror stories. |
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Electrical contractors typically use thermal imagers for predictive maintenance and troubleshooting, and sometimes during installation. | | |
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