The New Reality of Reliability in Thermal Power Generation Systems
Over the past three decades, the utility-scale generation mix has shifted dramatically, from a landscape dominated by steady baseload coal and nuclear units tow... Read more.
Why Reliability Needs a Reality Check: Back to CBM Basics
Once upon a time, the industry understood there would be a massive knowledge transition as the Baby Boomers retired en masse, with the peak of the curve hitting... Read more.
Why Joining Professional Organizations Strengthens Both You and Your Company
A professional organization is a formal group that brings individuals together who work in the same industry, occupation, or profession. Organizations such as... Read more.
Getting Predictive Maintenance Right with Grounded AI and IIoT Practices
Artificial intelligence (AI) and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) technologies have been marketed as transformative tools for predictive maintenance (PdM). ... Read more.
Why Offline Partial Discharge Matters for Low Voltage Motor Reliability
In 1995, it was determined that the cause of failure for electric motors in inverter (variable frequency drive) applications was partial discharge, or small lig... Read more.
Variable Frequency Drive Reliability Challenges
Over the past few years, we have received an increasing number of calls related to failures of inverter-based electric machinery and driven equipment. Some of... Read more.
How Spain May Have Ignored Root Cause Failure Analysis in Its Blackout
The Event: What Happened on April 28, 2025
On April 28, 2025 at 12:33 local time, the electrical systems of Spain and Portugal collapsed resulting in a blackout... Read more.
How to Improve Pump Reliability with Electrical Signature Analysis
Although sometimes referred to as Motor Current Signature Analysis (MCSA), which involves collecting motor current data only, Electrical Signature Analysis (ESA... Read more.
How Low-Voltage Motor Circuit Analysis Helps Predict Failures Early
We utilize virtually all testing methods for evaluating industrial and electrical systems for condition and root-cause analysis. Depending on the investigatio... Read more.
How Chaos Engineers Use AI Without Letting It Run the Plant
The following article was co-written with ChatGPT 4.5, primarily to test its capabilities with text and research, which it is presented as being specifically de... Read more.
Why Reliability Engineering That Ignores Context Will Fail Fast
Reliability is a subordinate topic to industrial and manufacturing engineering that has been branching out into its own more and more over the past few decades,... Read more.
How Ignoring VFD Guidelines Led to Bearings, Belts, and Drive Failures
When we are called out on service calls to test long-term failures in variable-frequency-driven environments, we sometimes encounter unique situations that bypa... Read more.
Why This 800 HP Steel Mill Fan Motor Failed and What Tests Revealed
The combustion fan motors at the steel plant are 800 horsepower, 1785 RPM, 4160 Vac, 101 Amp AC induction motors designed for severe duty applications and an 80... Read more.
Diagnosing Electric Motor Issues with Advanced Surge Testing
When reviewing the IEEE and EPRI large electric motor studies and what was considered ‘excellent maintenance,’ it is quickly noted that a lot of the technol... Read more.
Why U.S. Grid Stability Depends on Smart Politics and Policy
During the hottest day of the year so far, in Washington, DC, a team of over 400 wind, solar, and battery storage professionals and staff of American Clean Powe... Read more.
How Forensic RCFA Unlocks True Root Causes of Machine Failures
A tremendous amount of time, productivity, and production can be lost using improper troubleshooting and evaluation techniques. In this article, we will provide... Read more.
AI Isn’t Wise: Why Human Judgment Still Matters in Tech
This article was co-written with the support of OpenAI’s ChatGPT version 4.5 enterprise edition.
If you read or hear the hype systems deemed Artificial Intell... Read more.
What the Large Motor Reliability Studies Actually Found and Why It Matters
One of the most frequently quoted studies related to electric motor reliability is a 1983 Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) project performed by General ... Read more.
Supra Harmonics in VFD Systems: A New Frontier in Reliability Risk
As part of a larger research and development project involving multiple industries and distributed energy, we developed a unique tool called EMPOWER (Electric M... Read more.
Why So Many Electric Motors Are Quietly Running Beyond Safe Limits
Over the past four years, we have seen an increase in field troubleshooting calls related to catastrophic failures of specific types of equipment. When failed c... Read more.
