Bucket Elevator Inspections: Why, Who, How Often
Why inspect your Bucket Elevator?
One day, a friend of mine praised the durability of his car saying, “It’s so tough, I could weld the hood shut and never look at it again!” I could have argued but he was just enjoying the moment so much, I didn’t want to ruin it.
Here’s the thing with machines: no matter how durable an OEM designs or builds it, there are variables that the OEM (and even owners) can’t control or anticipate. How fast my friend drives, how many people ride in his car, what he hauls around in it, if he tows something, where he lives, how he drives, and even how often he hits a pothole will all impact every system within his car differently. This is true for any machine.
Rex and other OEM’s build some durable machines but over time conditions can change. Inspecting your machine can help you anticipate problems and can allow you to adapt before an issue escalates.
So, why inspect your bucket elevator? When catastrophic failures do occur, they are dangerous and expensive to recover from. You should inspect your bucket elevator or any equipment so that you can be proactive with your maintenance and repairs.
Who should inspect your Bucket Elevator?
Any employee that has a reason to be in the plant should inspect. I believe that anyone that has worked in a process-related plant can tell you years later what sounds it made, what it smells like, what it looked like, and how hot it would get. They could also tell you what was happening when certain conditions existed. Regular plant workers know the machines they work with the best, so they have the best insight into when things go wrong.
There are different types of inspections that might require different types of workers. Oilers or rovers, maintenance, and reliability or maintenance engineers are examples of workers who should inspect the bucket elevator for issues.
How Often should bucket elevators be inspected?
Rex equipment manuals are pretty good at describing this and should be followed. I believe that most OEM’s give good instruction on this point.
There should be a daily walk around when in operation to identify any changing conditions.
Coming out of a shutdown, a thorough Safety Inspection should take place. Safety grates and guards, doors being closed and latched, controls, signal devices, and more should all be functioning and verified.
If chain and buckets were replaced in a shutdown, we recommend an 8-hour period of no-load, fully monitored operation. After the trial period, there are many areas to verify including ensuring all buckets remain in place, that the take-up and guides are performing, and verifying the drive package is operating correctly.
Every OEM has expectations for inspections. For an owner or end-user, the inspections that follow will likely be determined by availability of the machine. The inspections that follow will for the most part require access to the internals of the bucket elevator.
Monthly, this is primarily a visual inspection of critical bucket elevator components. There are fourteen items in the checklist. It contains everything from the internal gravity take-up position and condition to the discharge rubber peeler lip and the drive assembly and backstop.
Annually, this is generally the same as the monthly inspection with a few key additions, like measuring chain elongation, removing any material build-up from the buckets, ensuring lateral supports are free to move, as well as instrumentation for controls and alarms.
While we understand the availability issue, the annual inspection should not be missed. This is the inspection that includes wear measurements of the chain which when compared over time will provide the details needed to forecast end of chain replacement.
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Fred Lueneburg
Fred Lueneburg, a US Navy Submarine Veteran has been involved with power generation, marine propulsion and heavy machinery since 1986 in various technical roles including operations, mechanical maintenance and control systems as well as field services. Fred joined Regal Rexnord in 2011 as the Industrial Chain and Conveying Systems Field Services Manager, Sr. Manager of the Industrial Chain and Conveying Systems Team from quotation through delivery and field services, Business Development Manager for the Rexnord Bulk Materials Handling team, Product Manager for Industrial Chain and currently as the Industrial Chain Business Development Manager supporting our sales team with site training, product training, opportunity development, quote expedite, order price negotiation and order expedite as needed.