Photos: Yara International

Online monitoring of low-RPM drums with HD technology at Yara Finland

Chemical fertilizer manufacturer Yara Finland implements online condition monitoring with SPM’s new HD technologies on low-speed fertilizer drums with great success.

Yara is the world’s largest producer of ammonia, nitrates and NPKs, providing the foundation of Yara’s fertilizer and industrial solutions. In Finland, Yara has three production sites. The Siilinjärvi site consists of a mine, two sulphuric acid plants, one phosphoric acid plant, one nitric acid plant and one NPK fertilizer plant. The Uusikaupunki site consists of two nitric acid plants as well as two fertilizer plants producing nitric acid and fertilizers. Finally, the Kokkola plant produces mainly potassium sulfate and feed phosphates.

Since 2012, Yara Finland has been using the online system Intellinova Compact for monitoring slow-rotating fertilizer drums. The monitoring system utilizes SPM HD measurements and vibration analysis with EVAM/HD ENV.

Yara’s local condition monitoring expert comments: “Safety, reliability and productivity are important values for Yara. With SPM online HD measurements on these heavy drums, we have improved these values in our fertilizer plant”.

Condition monitoring of drum applications is quite complex to implement because of the low rotational speed; the support wheels of the drum, for example, run at approximately 15 RPM. The possibility to use all available HD technologies with DuoTech accelerometers makes preventive condition monitoring possible, while at the same time-saving installation and maintenance costs.

Ethernet data connection between the Intellinova Compact measuring units and the Condmaster Ruby 2016 diagnostic and analysis software makes the system easy to use at different Yara sites and locations, enabling comparison between condition data from similar applications as well as an exchange of knowledge. In addition to the online system, the use of the handheld instrument Leonova Diamond provides help in difficult maintenance decisions.