Uses of thermography on Mechanical Problem Detection

A good PdM program will incoporate Vibration, Thermography and Oil Analysis. Each tool has its own benefits and complement each other quite well. You can use thermography to detect a lot of mechanical issues such as mis-alignment or bearing issues but ultimately vibration analysis is the best tool for that. Often times you find something with vibration analysis and confirm with thermography. Not always though. I have used thermography to quickly find over heated bearings in a motor. I'll run through the plant and look for anything obvious that jumps out. If I find something I'll confirm with vibration analysis. Sometimes I have found bearings that are warmer than normal and they just need a few shots of grease. At my plant we have PMs set in place to look at all motors every 6 months. It's just a quick scan to see if anything is obviusly wrong. Most of the time we catch problems via vibration because we do monthly monitoring on most equipment. Quite simply, you can't go wrong having an IR camera.

Our plant has kind of same mechanism as explained by @Matt...

Actually how much variation in the vibration reading tells you that a problem has occurred or not working as per the standards.