Get Back To Balance: Unbalanced Rotors Can Damage More Than Just Bearings

TACTICS & PRACTICES
Get Back to balance

Unbalanced rotors can damage more than just bearings
Rotor balancing is an important tactic for reducing Balance can be defined as the state of the mass distribution
vibration stress on bearings. The reason that unbalanced within the rotating assembly about its axis of rotation, explains
rotors damage bearings is that the peak load area in an Jack Zedek, senior mechanical engineer at Baldor Electric
unbalanced rotor is forcing lubrication away from the load (www.baldor.com). The eccentricities of this mass distribution
zone, the lubricant is being broken down, the bearing is are referred to as unbalance, he says. The amount of unbal-
fatiguing, or a combination of these can occur, says Bob ance is stated in units of mass times a distance, such as grams-
Matthews, reliability manager at Royal Purple (www.royal- inches, ounce-inches, gram-centimeters or gram-millimeters.
purple.com). Overloading and under-lubricating bearings The amount of unbalance contributes additional radial load
is going to damage the bearings and in most cases is avoid- into the machinery bearings. If the bearings are lightly radially
able by operating the rotors to design. The best approach to
avoid bearing failure is reliability maintenance. Precision balance and alignment
A rotor imbalance occurs when its center of gravity is
different from its center of rotation, explains Jarrod Pottei-
become increasingly critical as
ger, product and educational services manager for Des-Case rotational speeds increase.
(www.descase.com). This can be the result of many factors
including variations in material density, tolerances in fabrica-
tion, unsymmetrical parts, or shifting parts during operation or axially loaded, such as a coupled duty motor, then the effects
due to thermal, aerodynamic, or other effects, he says. Rotor of unbalance might not be as great in a theoretical sense when
imbalance causes cyclic loading and vibration that directly calculating a bearing L10 life. For example, if the theoretical
impact bearing life as load and speed are the determining fac- L10 life calculations drop from 1.5 million hours to 1.4 million
tors of a bearings L10 life. A 1-oz imbalance at a 12-in. radius hours because of the contributions from additional radial
can reduce bearing life by 50%. Conversely, reducing vibra- loading, would anyone really care? However, if the machinery
tion by 50% can increase bearing life by as much as 700%. is heavily loaded such as a belted duty motor with high radial
Precision balance and alignment become increasingly loads, or a pump or fan motor with high axial thrusts, the addi-
critical as rotational speeds increase, so plants utilizing tion of the forces into the bearing could have significant L10 life
high-speed machinery should pay attention to this aspect reductions for the bearings.
of the reliability program, suggests Potteiger. As with most Bearings, like all materials, have an upper limit to the
aspects of maintenance and reliability, a successful balanc- amount of tensile load that can be applied to them before
ing program requires education, experience, and the right they fail, explains Alan Friedman, senior instructor at
tools, he offers. Modern dynamic balancing equipment Mobius Institute (www.mobiusinstitute.com). This is called
and techniques can drastically reduce vibration, thereby their tensile strength, he explains. Fatigue loading is when
optimizing the life of bearings and other components. a repetitive or cyclic load is applied to a material. This is the
Roller bearings take up the strain on the machine, says type of load that vibration from an unbalance puts on the
John Bernet, product and application specialist at Fluke bearings. The load is positive, negative, positive, negative
(www.fluke.com). If the shaft is imbalanced, the forces on and repeats itself every time the shaft goes around. Think of
the shaft cause the bearing to wear much faster, he says. If bending a paper clip back and forth.
the motor and pump shafts are misaligned, the flexible cou- The problem with this sort of fatigue loading is that it can
pling will help some, but there are still high forces on each cause damage to the bearing, even if the load is well below
shaft causing the bearings to wear much faster. the upper tensile strength of the material, says Friedman.
Vibration testers should be used on a routine basis to Additionally, the damage is cumulative, meaning that the
measure rotating machines and determine if mechanical more revolutions of the shaft, the closer the bearing comes
faults are causing wear on the bearings, explains Bernet. to failure, he explains. More unbalance increases these
When faults arise, instead of just replacing bearings, the loads and hence leads to earlier failure. In addition to being
root cause of the fault needs to be determined, he says. a source of damage to bearings, vibration from unbalance
www.PLANTSERVICES.com February 2013 15

TACTICS & PRACTICES
can cause other problems. Pump seals, couplings, shafts, and try standards such as ISO 1940-1 and API 541 for induction
foundations are also subject to fatigue that can be hastened motors govern the suggested balance limits. For instance,
by increased levels of vibration. Additionally, vibration API 541 requires that a rotor must be balanced to within 4
traveling from the machine into the floor can affect other W/N limits, where W is the static load on each bearing and
machines, even causing false brinelling of bearings in N is the rotor speed.
standby machines, and perhaps the quality of the product Shaft vibration in machines generates tremendous
being manufactured. forces, says Howard Penrose, PhD, CMRP, vice president
Proper balancing of a rotor to required limits will help at Dreisilker Electric Motors (www.dreisilker.com). As the
ensure that the rotor will operate within acceptable vibra- vibration occurs, even with a machine running, oil, which
tion limits during operation, says Greg Chatlos, product is an incompressible fluid, is forced out from between the
engineer in the drive technologies division of Siemens surfaces of the bearing resulting in metal-to-metal contact,
Industry (www.usa.siemens.com/industry). The effect of an he says. As this occurs, deformities in the rolling elements
unbalanced rotor on bearings is not only dependent on the and races occur generating rough surfaces and increased
residual unbalance, but the rotors operating speed, as well. friction. Depending on the severity of the unbalance or
The main concern here is vibration where the rotor shaft vibration, the equipment can fail rapidly.
journal moves independent relative to the bearing outer When possible, ensure all components are balanced
race or Babbitt, he says. This creates a pounding force on on the shaft they will be operating on, says Penrose. The
the bearing, which can lead to a fatigue failure. A rotor with reason for this is that different components balanced within
an unbalance that operates at a high speed will have higher tolerance may add up to significant unbalance and vibration
vibration levels than the same rotor at a lower speed. Indus- when assembled together, he explains.
Celebrating 140 Years

On February 21, 2013, Atlas Copco celebrates our 140th birthday. From our
beginnings as a manufacturer of railroad rolling stock, we have grown to
hold world-leading positions in compressors, construction and mining
equipment, power tools and assembly systems. Our experiences during the
past 14 decades have guided us to our focus today on sustainable productivity.
Today, in the United States alone, we have 109 locations, 1.7 million sq.-ft.
of manufacturing, production, distribution and office space and employ over
4,500 people as well as working with hundreds of carefully selected distributors.
Much has changed since 1873, but this has remained constant: Atlas Copco
is committed to developing leading-edge technology and taking care of
customers. We feel the best way to celebrate 140 years is to acknowledge the
customers that made it possible. Thank you for your business. We look forward
to serving you far into the future.
866-688-9611
[email protected]

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TACTICS & PRACTICES

Get Back to balance

www.PLANTSERVICES.com February 2013 15

Celebrating 140 Years

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