OBJECTIVE

Treatment of 95% of Aguas de Aburrá

In 2000, the EPM group initiated the Medellín River sanitation program with the commissioning of the San Fernando wastewater treatment plant. In 2012, with the objective of continuing the program and achieving treatment of 95% of these waters, the EPM group subsidiary, Aguas Nacionales/Consorcio de Aguas de Aburrá, constructed and commissioned the north interceptor and the Bello wastewater treatment plant.

This megaproject enabled the transportation of wastewater from the municipalities of Medellín and Bello to this plant where, through activated sludge, it receives secondary treatment before being discharged into the Medellín River. In this way, by reducing the organic load received by the river, it will be possible to raise the dissolved oxygen content to a minimum level of 5 mg/l, complying with the requirements established by the environmental authority.

The supplied system has two main objectives: on the one hand, to ensure the protection of equipment and personnel by preventing possible catastrophic failures in the most critical equipment; and on the other, to enable continuous and remote supervision of equipment operation, as some equipment is located outside the plant facilities.

Execution Date:

2012

Location:

Spain

Sector:

Water

HOW WE MADE IT HAPPEN

Monitoring and data processing

Within the construction project of the Bello wastewater treatment plant, a vibration monitoring system was planned to improve the performance of the main machinery. The scope of this monitoring system included continuous monitoring of 41 machine trains as well as the supply of portable vibration measurement equipment for conducting measurement routes on less critical machinery.

The monitored machinery includes inlet pumps to the wastewater treatment system, aeration system blowers, primary and secondary sludge pumps, agitators, thickening and dewatering centrifugal pumps, and gas motor generators. Temperatures in bearings and bushings are also monitored.

OUR CONTRIBUTION

What products and services we applied to the project

  • Vibrations

    Vibration technology is essential in industrial predictive maintenance, as it detects imbalances, misalignments and failures in rotating components with high accuracy.

  • Portable equipment

    Portable vibration analysis equipment allows fast and accurate diagnostics in the field, identifying unbalances, misalignments and incipient faults in rotating machinery.

  • Asset Reliability Practitioner (ARP-L) Reliability Leader

    The Asset Reliability Specialist [ARP-L] "RELIABILITY PROGRAM LEADER" course encompasses not only the technical knowledge, but also the roles necessary to be able to lead teams, communicate frequently and clearly, and have strong budget and project management skills.

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RESULTS AND ACHIEVEMENTS

An efficient system

All of this enabled the implementation of a predictive maintenance system based on knowledge of machine condition through vibration analysis and diagnostics.

The measured variables are sent to the plant’s distributed control system for analysis by the operators, who, thanks to the diagnostic tool, hosted on an external server, can make reports and assessments taking into account the data history of past measurements. The system architecture includes a fiber optic ring network with remote access capabilities.

30%

reduction of unplanned downtime

50%

savings in asset repair costs