preventative maintenance

Plant Outage Inspection Identifies Big Problem

Horner Indy Field Service was on site at a plant outage in Blytheville Arkansas. This customer is a compressed gases company that supports a steel plant. During the inspection and testing, we identified an insulation problem in a 6,000 HP compressor motor. When we reported the findings to the customer, he asked us to change the motor out for the spare. The spare was in storage in Texas, and they got the spare on the road to Arkansas. Meanwhile, we did not go there with the tools, equipment and the required manpower to do a motor swap of this size. We [...]

Plant Outage Inspection Identifies Big Problem2025-07-23T12:24:35-04:00

Horner Electro-Mechanical Diagnostic Group – Coal Fired Power Plant Vertical Motor

At Horner Industrial Group, we take pride in our commitment to excellence and preventative maintenance solutions. Recently, our EMDS department had a significant impact on the operations of a coal-fired power plant, showcasing the vital role of hands-on data collection and analysis in preventing potential disasters. Our client, a coal-fired power plant, relies heavily on rotating equipment to maintain its operations. Every month, our vibration technician Joe Roseberry, performs vibration data collection and analysis on all rotating equipment at the plant. One critical piece of equipment under Joe’s watchful eye is an agitator, which plays a crucial role in an environmental [...]

Horner Electro-Mechanical Diagnostic Group – Coal Fired Power Plant Vertical Motor2025-01-15T11:05:08-05:00

500 MW Generator Failure: Lesson Be Observant

          A 500 MW generator failed catastrophically, it had an internal short that resulted in a phase to phase short. The generator stopped so suddenly that it sheared off 24 2 ½” bolts in the coupling between the generator and the turbine. The problem was traced to the phase leads resonance shifting to 120HZ as the generator aged. This problem resulted in the annual testing of the phase leads for the unit that had the failure and also on its sister machine. One of the key lessons learned during many hours of testing these generators was that [...]

500 MW Generator Failure: Lesson Be Observant2024-02-28T09:55:34-05:00

Horner Team Effort On Substation

A manufacturer of insulation and commercial roofing, along with glass fibers and nonwovens recently had a project to rebuild their glass melter and scheduled to have the plant completely shut down for 60 days. Mike Croft and I met with the electrical engineering staff on-site and listened to their problems. Mike, another vendor, and I walked the entire plant taking pictures and collecting information on their electrical substations. We ended up getting the bid for right around $300,000.00. For the 3 months leading up to the outage, we met weekly (either in person or conference call/TEAMS meeting) and agreed/planned to have [...]

Horner Team Effort On Substation2023-03-14T11:45:22-04:00

Aluminum Plant Outage

A major aluminum manufacturer contracts Horner EMDS (Electro Mechanical Diagnostic Services) to perform monthly vibration data collection and analysis. EMDS identified a mill gearbox input shaft bearing issue. In 2022, the monthly vibration analysis indicated the bearing issue increasing. The vibration analysis was discussed with the customer and the vibration data collection increased to twice weekly. At the same time, customer was planning a major outage to on-site repair the gearbox. The March outage was scheduled. Horner provided 24 hour per day, 5-day work schedule. On a Monday the outage started. Mark Rosebrock was lead tech on day shift and Matt [...]

Aluminum Plant Outage2023-03-14T11:27:59-04:00

Aluminum Foil Plant Preventative Maintenance

One of Louisville’s largest customers pro- duces aluminum foil. Manufacturing foil starts with aluminum rolls up to 1/2” thick. This plant takes the ½” thick thru mill 6, which reduces the foil thickness to less than 0.100” thickness. From mill 6, the rolls are rolled thinner in mills 3-4-5. After several passes thru these mills, the rolls go to mill 1-2 to roll to thickness required for commercial or residential use. Standard household or standard duty aluminum foil is 0.00063” thick and extra heavy duty foil is 0.00094” thick. Both thinner than 1 thousandth of an inch. Rolling aluminum foil this [...]

Aluminum Foil Plant Preventative Maintenance2023-03-13T10:55:03-04:00

Power Generation Plant Water Pump Motors

A coal fired power generation plant had a planned outage to maintain equipment and Horner was onsite to remove 2 1250HP vertical pump motors. These motors pull water from the reservoir for cooling purposes and heat exchangers. These motors were taken out for routine maintenance, basic reconditioning and to replace bearings. Onsite to help with the removal was Indianapolis Field Service Don Pence, Louisville Field Service Joe Dupont and Terre Haute’s Eddie Piper and Jeremy Brown. Crane service had to be scheduled and coordinated to pull the motors out. The bearings for these motors are specialized thrust bearings and were replaced [...]

Power Generation Plant Water Pump Motors2023-03-13T10:23:54-04:00

Ice Blasting/Cryogenic Cleaning

Cryogenic blasting or “Dry ice blasting” is a super clean way to get equipment back to a clean condition without any residual mess like if you were to use cob media or sand. Dry ice blasting is a form of carbon dioxide cleaning, where dry ice, the solid form of carbon dioxide is accelerated in a pressurized air stream and directed at a surface to clean it. The method is like other forms of media blasting such as sand blasting, plastic bead blasting, or soda blasting, Cryogenic blasting uses dry ice as the blasting medium. Dry-ice blasting is nonabrasive based off [...]

Ice Blasting/Cryogenic Cleaning2022-05-16T11:45:27-04:00

Horner Coatings Keeps Plastic Shopping Bags In Production

A plastics company called us out to examine two shafts used on the wash line hopper on their recycled product lines. They take used plastic and create new hard pellet material that combine with other raw materials to make plastic bags used for retail. This hopper is the first in the wash line where the material is cleaned. These small shafts have a dual bushing design that in theory, should be grease lubricated and would wear as the machine operated. This would lead to the eventual need to replace bushings on the shafts but that would have been anticipated by Preventative [...]

Horner Coatings Keeps Plastic Shopping Bags In Production2022-05-16T10:36:48-04:00

13200 V 2000 HP Vertical Motor

Can you even imagine how many 60,000,000 gallons a day of water looks like? A good-sized bath would hold 40 gallons and a million gallons would be 25,000 baths. A water utility company recently sent in a 13,200V, 2,000 HP Vertical Motor to be rebuilt. Due to Capital Improvement programs the city and the Preventative Maintenance Team said this motor was due for a rebuild. This motor supplies energy for a 60,000,000 gallon a day vertical pump pumping potable water to the city. This facility has been going strong along the Ohio River since 1860. This was a total rewind on [...]

13200 V 2000 HP Vertical Motor2022-01-28T15:24:28-05:00

Helpful Resources

Corporate Office

1521 East Washington Street
Indianapolis, Indiana 46201
Phone: (877) 467-6372
Fax: 317-639-4342

Like Us on Facebook!

Follow Us on LinkedIn!

Follow Us on LinkedIn!

© 2025 Horner Industrial Group
Privacy Policy | Transparency In Coverage

Site by Sharp Guys Web Design

About

Products

Services

Locations

Info

Go to Top