Typically, it is only discovered that a pump part has worn out during scheduled maintenance or when there is a catastrophic failure. Other than guesswork about how the wear occurred or the specific mode of wear, there is no real data to prevent pump wear from reoccurring. To address this, the experts at KSB GIW, Inc. developed GIW® SLYsight.
SLYsight operates using attached sensors which continuously monitors the thickness of different parts and visualizes wear over time. This provides a better understanding of wear patterns and how they come about.
The main goal of SLYsight is to measure the actual thickness of the parts, because wear primarily occurs when the parts become thin and either fail or no longer function properly. To achieve this, special sensors were developed and tested on white iron samples with material thickness up to eight inches.
After a year of development and various enhancements, field trials were conducted. Customers utilizing SLYsight have been able to observe how their parts are wearing out and, as a result, extend their maintenance cycles. For example, in one trial, the expected lifespan of a part was much shorter than what the data actually showed. This allowed the customers to extend the maintenance interval, resulting in significant reduction in downtime.
With GIW® SLYsight, customers now have precise information on when to make nose gap adjustments, leading to improved efficiency and increased wear life. In some cases, customers have seen a 50% increase in wear life just by maintaining the optimum clearance. This can result in efficiency gains of 5% to 10%. Overall, SLYsight provides significant benefits for customers in terms of efficiency and maintenance.
