DYNAMIC BALANCING OF ROTORS WITH MANUAL BALANCERS

An unbalance is the most common issue affecting the turbomachinery rotors. A machine operation at high vibration level due to the rotor disk unbalance will result in the damage to rotor bearings. The vibration level in industrial turbomachinery is hardly ever monitored in online systems to record all exceeded parameters. It is usually monitored in the key process machines. The operation of a supervision system will result in their deactivation at reaching the alarm threshold vibration level. The rotor disk is in almost all cases balanced in its own bearings supporting the shaft using the influence coefficient method. In some cases, the rotor disk is balanced in normal operation using automatic balancers. Although they do not solve the rotor unbalance issue, they reduce the vibration level at any given time. The main disadvantage of the system is its high price, often exceeding the costs of a new pump or fan. If technical conditions allow to stop the rotor for a short period, the disk can be balanced using manual balancers, with a significantly lower cost compared to the automatic balancing equipment. The operation of the manual balancing system is described herein