Eliminate Downtime with Intelligent Condition Monitoring for Compressors
Leverage continuous compressor monitoring for early anomaly detection, AI plus CME review, and prescriptive next steps.
For the Compressors Your Operation Depends On
When a compressor goes down, it rarely takes just itself with it. AssetWatch gives your team visibility into developing faults, protecting your compressors and your entire operation.
Reduce Unexpected Downtime
Faults build over time and show up in the data long before they become a failure event. Continuous condition monitoring for compressors gives your team that window to work with.
Lower Maintenance Costs & Overtime
Compressor predictive maintenance means knowing what’s wrong, how serious it is, and what to do about it—so emergency call-ins stop being the default.
Extend Asset Life & Stabilize Production
Catching compressor faults early—the kind that stress connected systems along the way—protects the asset and limits what a single fault can cost.
Compressor Conditions We Monitor
Compressor failures are rarely sudden, and certain fault signatures signal stress that’s been building for hours or days. AssetWatch monitors for the mechanical and condition-based fault signatures on rotating compressor equipment:
Valve Wear / Failure
Seat and seal degradation tracked through pressure and flow deviations before throughput or safety is compromised.
Pressure Instability
Erratic pressure fluctuations detected continuously before they stress seals, valves, or downstream equipment.
Oil Analysis (high particle count)
Elevated metallic and non-metallic particle counts flagged before wear rates accelerate to failure-level conditions.
Misalignment
Misaligned shafts and couplings put uneven load on bearings and seals on both sides of the drive. Vibration analysis detects the signature relating to the turning speed of the shaft and quantifies the severity before it becomes a bearing or seal replacement.
Rolling Element Bearing
Inner race, outer race, and rolling element defects detected weeks before failure through continuous vibration monitoring.
Bearing Wear and Defects
Bearing failures start below the surface — lubricant breakdown and sub-surface fatigue develop long before heat or noise appear. Vibration and oil analysis flag it weeks ahead, when a planned repair is still an option.
Rotating Component Imbalance
Uneven mass distribution identified by characteristic vibration patterns at running speed.
Shaft misalignment
A bent shaft — whether from a rotor bow, excessive load, or mechanical damage — produces a vibration signature that mimics misalignment but doesn't improve with realignment. Vibration analysis identifies the condition so the right diagnosis gets made.
Mechanical Looseness
Loose hold-down bolts, worn bearing fits, and cracked or defective bases allow the machine to move in ways it shouldn't. Vibration analysis picks up the characteristic response — directional vibration and phase shifts that point to where the structure has lost its rigidity.
Wear particle detection
Metallic wear particles in oil are a direct signal that something inside the machine is breaking down — bearings, gears, or other contact surfaces generating debris under load. Oil analysis quantifies the particle concentration and type, giving a clear picture of where the wear is happening and how fast it's progressing.
Contamination
Dirt, water, and foreign particles in a lubrication system accelerate wear at a rate most maintenance teams don't see coming. Oil analysis tracks particle counts and cleanliness levels continuously, flagging contamination before it chews through bearings and gears.
Lubricant Degradation
Oil breaks down over time — viscosity drops, additives deplete, and the protective film between moving surfaces gets thinner. Oil analysis tracks the degradation continuously so a fluid change happens on schedule, not after the damage is already done.
Coupling and drive train issues
Worn coupling elements, loose keyways, or dry gear couplings put stress on every bearing and shaft on both sides of the drive. Vibration analysis picks up harmonics of turning speed and impacting in the waveform to gauge the severity of the failure.
Resonance and Structural Vibration
Resonance occurs when a machine's operating speed excites the natural frequency of a structure, producing high vibration in one direction that doesn't respond to balancing or alignment. Vibration analysis identifies the condition and separates it from other fault types so the right fix — speed adjustment, added mass, or stiffening — gets applied.
Compressor condition monitoring ensures your team is tracking vital pattern changes—and knows what to do when anomalies appear.
How AssetWatch Works for Compressors
Compressor faults appear through patterns in vibration, temperature, and oil data that a trained eye can read weeks ahead of failure. AssetWatch is built to find those patterns through continuous monitoring, AI-powered analytics, and expert human review. From single lines to multi-site operations, human-validated alerts get in front of your team with the context to act.
Sensors Installed on Critical Compressor Points
Continuous Vibration wireless sensors attach at key measurement points identified during implementation, such as bearing housings and other critical locations. Non-intrusive installation means production stays running.
Continuous Data Collection & Trending
Sensors run around the clock, building a baseline for each compressor and tracking how vibration signatures, temperature, and oil condition shift over time.
AI Analytics Identify Emerging Patterns
Automated detection runs continuously against known compressor failure signatures, tracking how patterns evolve, rather than just whether a value crossed a threshold. AssetWatch shows your team what’s developing, what’s driving it, and how urgently it needs attention.
Expert Validation & Prescriptive Recommendations
A dedicated condition monitoring engineer (CME) reviews and validates every finding. Your team receives more than a data dump—a confirmed fault with specific recommended actions.
Asset Saves in the Field
Oil analysis flagged improper viscosity across multiple reciprocating compressors, and switching to the correct EP 320 lubricant saved the customer $5,000 per unit across 5 units.
A sudden spike in RMS acceleration and high-frequency harmonics pointed to thrust bearing wear on an industrial compressor, and replacing the bearing avoided a shutdown and saved $150,000.
Vibration levels rose to about 2.0 in/sec, pointing to imbalance from buildup on a dryer fan, and cleaning it during a planned outage returned vibration to normal and resolved the issue.
From Reactive to Predictive
Hear how some of our customers transformed their maintenance program with AssetWatch.
Explore More Assets
Motors
Identify mechanical issues early with continuous monitoring designed for the assets that power your operation.
Pumps
Continuous vibration monitoring, AI-powered analytics, and expert human review protects pumps before they impact flow, efficiency, or production.
Fans and Blowers
Human-validated detection for fan and blower issues before they affect performance and reliability.
Frequently Asked Questions
Condition monitoring for compressors can detect a wide range of developing mechanical and lubrication faults, including lubrication-related issues, wear particles, and thermal anomalies. Also:
- Bearing wear
- Thrust bearing distress
- Imbalances
- Misalignment
- Mechanical looseness
- Coupling issues
AssetWatch monitors for those signatures continuously in vibration and oil analysis data.
Most compressor failures leave a trail first. Condition monitoring surfaces shifts in vibration trends, oil quality, and function. The difference between a planned bearing replacement and an emergency compressor rebuild is usually just how early the problem was caught.
AssetWatch’s condition monitoring platform leverages AI to detect those signals, with a dedicated CME to validate findings and tell your team exactly what to do.
Vibration monitoring is one component of condition monitoring for compressors—it catches most mechanical fault types early and reliably. Full compressor condition monitoring adds oil analysis, which surfaces lubrication degradation and wear particles that vibration alone may not reveal, and temperature monitoring, which flags thermal stress and overheating risks.
AssetWatch offers continuous vibration monitoring, route-based vibration monitoring, oil analysis, expert validation, and prescriptive analysis for a more complete picture of compressor health.
High-criticality compressors tied to refrigeration, utilities, process pressure, or safety systems benefit from continuous monitoring. Thrust bearing wear and lubrication-related faults can escalate faster than a monthly route-based interval allows for. Route-based vibration analysis works well for lower-criticality compressors where the failure timeline is slower.
Recurring compressor problems are almost always symptoms of something that has yet to be fully resolved. Repeat bearing failures often point to misalignment, while recurring vibration usually signals an unresolved imbalance or looseness condition.
Compressor condition monitoring identifies lubrication status and contamination, along with the mechanical patterns behind repeat issues, so a fix addresses the cause, not just the symptom.
remote equipment monitoring
The Ways We Monitor
Every asset requires a different monitoring strategy. AssetWatch offers multiple monitoring solutions so you get the right coverage for every machine and every condition.
Continuous Vibration Monitoring
Electrical Monitoring
Continuously monitor three-phase current, RPM, and panel temperature to catch winding degradation, phase imbalance, and overload conditions weeks before they cause motor failure.