Speedier, more user-friendly shaft alignment
The new Fixturlaser XA shaft alignment system has been well accepted by the petroleum industry. Users include Shell Offshore in Houston and Statoil’s Snøhvit LNG plant in Norway, and other sales to offshore customers are pending. The product also has proved popular among refinery operators.
XA stands for express alignment, and the thrust of the new development has been to provide a user-friendly means for performing shaft alignment quickly, says Kristina Stenholtz, responsible for market communications. Some of the steps required in conventional systems have been shortened and others eliminated, she says.
The system consists of a display box and two laser units. The laser units are pre-mounted on the fixtures, which, therefore, can be attached straight away to the shafts. The units are small, making them easy to attach even in confined spaces. Instead of the standard data transfer using cables, the system optionally can be supplied with wireless data transfer.
In place of the conventional PSD receivers, the laser units incorporate line laser with CCD - charge coupled device - detectors, the same technology used in digital cameras. The CCD detectors give high-quality measurements values even at longer distances. Only coarse alignment of the laser beams is required.
Sometimes shaft alignment is only carried out relatively infrequently, so rather than relying on the user’s memory, the system provides its own step-by-step guidance by means of a display using Flash® animation and icons in four colors on a 6.4-in. backlit LCD touch-screen.
The three measuring points required to calculate the adjustment for shaft alignment are shown automatically as the shafts are rotated; the display shows exactly how much the shaft needs to be rotated to get the best measurement.
Once the measurements have been made, the displays shows exactly how much the movable machine needs to be adjusted, with arrows indicating in which direction the adjustment should be made. This has proved to be a real time-saver, says Stenholtz.
For more information contact Kristina Stenholtz, Fixturlaser. Tel +46 31706 2830, fax +46 31 706 2850,[email protected], www.fixturlaser.com