Environmentally robust chemical sensors for monitoring industrial processes or infrastructures are lately becoming important devices in industry. Low complexity and wireless enabled characteristics can offer the required flexibility for sensor deployment in adaptable sensing networks for continuous monitoring and management of industrial assets. Here are presented the design, development and operation of a class of low cost photonic sensors for monitoring the ageing process and the operational characteristics of coolant fluids used in an industrial heavy machinery infrastructure. The chemical, physical and spectroscopic characteristics of specific industrial-grade coolant fluids were analyzed along their entire life cycle range, and proper parameters for their efficient monitoring were identified. Based on multimode polymer or silica optical fibers, wide range (3–11) pH sensors were developed by employing sol-gel derived pH sensitive coatings. The performances of the developed sensors were characterized and compared, towards their coolants’ ageing monitoring capability, proving their efficiency in such a demanding application scenario and harsh industrial environment. The operating characteristics of this type of sensors allowed their integration in an autonomous wireless sensing node, thus enabling the future use of the demonstrated platform in wireless sensor networks for a variety of industrial and environmental monitoring applications.

Lately the demand for in situ and real time monitoring of industrial assets and processes has been dramatically increased. Although numerous sensing techniques have been proposed, only a small fraction can operate efficiently under harsh industrial environments. In this work the operational properties of a proposed photonic based chemical sensing scheme, capable to monitor the ageing process and the quality characteristics of coolants and lubricants in industrial heavy machinery for metal finishing processes is presented. The full spectroscopic characterization of different coolant liquids revealed that the ageing process is connected closely to the acidity/ pH value of coolants, despite the fact that the ageing process is quite complicated, affected by a number of environmental parameters such as the temperature, humidity and development of hazardous biological content as for example fungi. Efficient and low cost optical fiber sensors based on pH sensitive thin overlayers, are proposed and employed for the ageing monitoring. Active sol-gel based materials produced with various pH indicators like cresol red, bromophenol blue and chorophenol red in tetraethylorthosilicate (TEOS), were used for the production of those thin film sensitive layers deposited on polymer's and silica's large core and highly multimoded optical fibers. The optical characteristics, sensing performance and environmental robustness of those optical sensors are presented, extracting useful conclusions towards their use in industrial applications. Downloaded From: http://proceedings.spiedigitallibrary.org/ on 05/27/2015 Terms of Use: http://spiedl.org/terms Proc. of SPIE Vol. 9359 93591Y-2 Downloaded From: http://proceedings.spiedigitallibrary.org/ on 05/27/2015 Terms of Use: http://spiedl.org/terms Proc. of SPIE Vol. 9359 93591Y-3 Downloaded From: http://proceedings.spiedigitallibrary.org/ on 05/27/2015 Terms of Use: http://spiedl.org/terms Proc. of SPIE Vol. 9359 93591Y-6 Downloaded From: http://proceedings.spiedigitallibrary.org/ on 05/27/2015 Terms of Use: http://spiedl.org/terms

Purpose Field expertise in industry is often poorly recorded and unexploited. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a methodology and tool that incorporates a knowledge validation loop to leverage upon human-contributed field observations in industrial maintenance management. Starting from a failure mode, effects and criticality analysis (FMECA) model, it defines a collaborative process that links FMECA knowledge with field maintenance practice. Design/methodology/approach A metadata management system is designed to encourage staff involvement in enriching knowledge with field observations. The process supports easy feedback and collaborative annotation and is pilot tested via an industrial case study. Findings Streamlining FMECA validation is welcomed by maintenance staff, empowering them to exert more control over the management, usage and versioning of reference knowledge. Research limitations/implications The methodology for metadata management in industrial maintenance enables staff participation in a collaborative knowledge enrichment process. Metadata management is a pre-cursor and therefore an important step to drive future analytics. Practical implications Industry personnel are more inclined to contribute to organisational knowledge if the process is based on reference knowledge and requires minimal interaction. Social implications Facilitating individual contribution to collective knowledge strengthens the sense that each staff member can have organisational impact. Originality/value The paper introduces a methodology and tool to stimulate human-contributed knowledge in industrial maintenance, strengthening collaborative organisation knowledge flows.