Vibration analysis: determining causes of excess vibration

Vibration analysis is a powerful tool, which can be used to determine if a machine is experiencing any problems. This is done through the use of a vibration analyzer, along with a transducer, which converts the mechanical vibration to an electrical signal. When the data is fully collected it needs to be analyzed to determine the cause of these vibrations. The most common causes of vibration in most machines are: unbalance, misalignment, mechanical looseness, and faulty bearings. If the vibration is excessive, corrective action should be taken to reduce the vibration. If this excessive vibration is not attended to, a mechanical failure will eventually occur. In order to prevent failure and to determine what state the machines are operating, the maintenance team at the Institute for Marine Dynamics conducted vibration analysis on a number of various rotating devices. From this, it was concluded that a small portion of the devices tested needed maintenance.NRC publication: Ye