Bearings and gearbox vibration are fundamental issues for rotating machines in many industrial applications. These are critical components; any failure can prove expensive in repair costs and downtime. Because of…
Prosig was contracted by Imperial Electric in Akron, Ohio to integrate a system for end of line vibration test for electric motors they manufacture. The requirement was to qualify motors under…
In our previous post on this subject we briefly looked at how we can use the detailed design information of bearings and gearboxes to look for specific fault conditions by collecting vibration information and analysing their frequency spectra. Amplitude modulation of the vibration signatures is common and we have seen how this causes side-bands to be present in the frequency domain.
In this post we will first look at how to process data from rotating machinery. Then we will focus on shaft or gear train twist. Let's look at 3 different…
The latest version of Prosig’s DATS software was released today and is available to download from the Prosig Support web pages. Read on to find out about some the new features… (more…)
Here is a great little collection of engineering animations from the simple everyday to the more sophisticated. A brilliant way to learn how things work. We hope you like them. Please leave your comments.
Engine power enters through the shaft on the left and is transferred out of the gearbox on the right. The lower shaft is known as the layshaft. You can find out more about manual gearboxes at How Stuff Works.
The use of a vibration condition monitoring system for monitoring vibration from large rotating machines fitted with fluid-filled journal bearings such as steam or gas turbines is well understood. Vibration from these components generally falls within the main harmonics or orders of the shaft rotational speed such as 1st, 2nd 3rd or 4th harmonic. Some energy may also exist below the 1st order, called the sub-synchronous component. Most energy exists below 1KHz and so standard displacement probes or velocity transducers are generally fitted. The Prosig PROTOR system collects this data in amplitude and phase form, relative to a ‘once-per-revolution’ phase reference signal, as standard and allows data to be displayed in real-time as mimic diagrams, trend plots, orbit and vector displays.
Knowing how to measure torsional vibration is of key importance in the area of vehicle development and refinement. The main contributory source is the engine where periodically occurring combustion cycles cause variation in the crankshaft rotary vibration. This vibration is transmitted to and modified further by other components in the powertrain such as the gearbox and by other equipment driven off the drive belt or chain. Additional torsional vibrations are also likely to appear downstream at the drive shafts and wheels.
The measurement of torsional twist, or the twist angle, between two points along a shaft or through a gear train may be derived from a pair of tacho signals, one at each end of the shaft. Typically the tacho signals would be derived from gear teeth giving a known number of pulses/revolution. For example one end of a shaft could have a gear wheel with say 60 teeth giving 60 pulses/revolutions when measured with say an inductive or eddy current probe. (more…)
It is sometimes necessary to perform high pass filtering to eliminate low frequency signals. These may arise for instance from whole body vibrations when perhaps our interest is in higher frequency components from a substructure such as an engine or gearbox mounting. The vibration levels are speed sensitive and the usual scheme is to record a once per revolution ‘tacho’ signal with the vibration data. The tacho signal, which ideally is a nice regular pulse train, is processed to find rotational speed and hence to select which part of the vibration signal is to be frequency analyzed. The most common form of analysis is a waterfall type such as shown below.
