Análise de falha e causa raiz de uma bomba centrífuga multiestágio para bombeamento de metanol seco em uma indústria multinacional de biodiesel

Abstract

Currently, industries face significant challenges to achieve and maintain their position in the market. Leveraging failures as an opportunity for improvement can generate a valuable competitive advantage. For this, it is fundamental that the maintenance and production sectors work together to reduce the number of recurring occurrences. In this work, various techniques were used to analyze the failure of a pump used in the production of biodiesel in a multinational industry, such as optical emission spectroscopy, metallographic analysis, and microhardness measurements. Optical emission spectroscopy is a technique that allows identifying the chemical elements present in the analyzed material. Metallographic analysis is used to examine the material's microstructure, while microhardness measurements allow evaluating the hardness at specific points. With the combination of these techniques, it was possible to identify that the main shaft's breakage occurred due to the pump's operation without fluid, generating overheating in the mechanical seal. The overheating caused the mechanical seal to expand, which got stuck on the main shaft, causing local overheating on the shaft, leading to the point of torsion breakage.