Vibration Monitoring and Control

Abstract

Mechanical vibration in machines and equipment can occur due to many factors, such as unbalanced inertia, bearing failures on turbines, motors, generators, pumps, drives, turbofans, etc., poor kinematic design resulting in a non-rigid support structure, component failure and/or operations outside prescribed load ratings. The machine vibration signal can typically be characterised as a narrow-band interference signal anywhere in the range from 1 Hz to 500 kHz. To prevent equipment damage from the severe shaking that occurs when machines malfunction or vibrate at resonant frequencies, a real-time monitoring or control device is very useful. When the machine is used to perform highly precise positioning functions, undue vibrations can lead to poor repeatibility properties, impeding any systematic error compensation effort. This results directly in a loss of precision and accuracy achievable.