BASICS OF VIBRATION

What is Vibration (Fig. 2)?

Vibration can be defined as cyclic or an oscillating motion of a component from its mean
position.

Fig. 2: Vibration of Simple Spring Mass System

Units of Measurement:

 Displacement : m, mm, microns. mils

 Velocity : m/sec, mm/sec , in/sec
 Acceleration : m/sec2, g

What causes Vibration?

 Unbalance
 Misalignment
 Bent shaft
 Looseness
 Eccentricity
 Resonance
 Anti-friction bearing
 Journal bearing
 Aerodynamics and hydraulic problem
  Electrical problem
 Gear problem
 Belt-drives problem

Units of Vibration:

 Amplitude: It is the magnitude of vibration signal. How much is it vibrating? Size

(severity) of the problem.
 Frequency: How many times oscillation is occurring for a given time period? What is
vibrating? Source of the vibration.
 Phase Angle: The Phase Angle is the angle (in degrees) the shaft travels from the start of
data collection to when the sensor experiences maximum positive force. How is it
vibrating? Cause of the vibration.

Units of Amplitude

 Displacement: The distance a structure moves or vibrates from its reference or rest
position.
 Velocity: Rate of change of displacement. It is the measure of the speed at which the
mass is vibrating during its oscillation.
 Acceleration: It is the rate of change of velocity. The greater the rate of change of
velocity the greater the forces (F=ma) on the machines.

When To Use Displacement / Velocity / Acceleration (Fig. 3)?

 Fig. 3: When to Use Displacement-Velocity-Acceleration
Systems / Tools for Monitoring
Transducers (Fig. 4): It is a basic device, which converts mechanical motion into electrical
signal which can be amplified, filtered, analysed and displayed to indicate the vibrations and
allow diagnosis of the overall machinery health.
 Fig. 4: Use of transducers for vibration monitoring
Seismic Sensor –

 Works on piezo-electrical / moving coil principle

 Indirect measurement of shaft vibration.
 Directly mounted on machine casing / bearing house.
 Absolute vibration in terms of mm/sec or g

The VELOCITY PICK-UP is a contact type transducer.

Within the velocity pick-up, a spring-mass suspension system is used, which is designed to have
low frequency. It is a permanent magnet-mass suspended on a spring and surrounded by a coil
attached to the protective housing. A damping fluid is used to damp the natural frequency
Velocity pick-up is limited to low frequency (between 10 Hz and 1500 Hz) for practical
purposes.
Accelerometer (Fig. 5)
The accelerometer consists of a stack of piezoelectric crystals (such as quartz) on which a mass
is attached.
When a piezoelectric crystal is stressed, it produces an electric voltage output which is
proportion to the stress/force. When the accelerometer is attached to a vibration body, the crystal
is stressed by the inertia of the mass caused due to the vibration. Electrical voltage output is
proportion to the vibration acceleration.

Fig. 5: Several types of transducers.

VIBRATION SIGNALES:

 A frequency that is an integral multiple (´2, ´3, etc.) of a fundamental (´1) frequency.
 Sub-harmonic. A frequency that is an integral submultiple (´1/2, ´1/3, etc.) of a
fundamental (´1) frequency.
 Vibration components (on rotating machinery) that are related to shaft speed.
 Sub-sychronous. Components of a vibration signal whose frequency is less than 1´ shaft
speed.
 Fig. 6: Dominant frequency vs Nature of Fault

 Unidirectional vibrations. i.e. severity is more in radial directions as compared to axial.

 Phase difference is 90° in radial directions.
 Highly sensible w.r.t. machine rpm. It is directly proportional to machine speed.

FREQUENCY SPECTRUM (Fig. 7)

is a plot of frequency V/s amplitude. The frequency axis may be scaled in direct frequency units
Hz or in order of shaft rotative speed ie. 1X , 2X etc. depending on requirement. Baseline data
can also be superimposed on the existing data to view changes in rotor response from known
conditions.
 Fig. 7: Sample frequency spectrum plot
BODE PLOT (Fig. 8)
is a transient data plot and display is either 1X or 2X vibration amplitude and phase with respect
to shaft rotative speed. This plot is only available as startup or shutdown data.
This plot is useful in determining the slow roll speed range, balance resonant frequencies,
synchronous amplification factor, heavy spot location and rotor mode shape. Click here to know
about causes and effects of piping vibration.
Common Causes and Effects of Piping Vibration
Due to the fact that most of the piping design codes (ASME B 31.3, B31.1, B31.4, B 31.8 etc.) does not address the
vibration issues in a detailed fashion, the damaging effect is normally ignored during design stage and simple static
analysis without attention to vibration is performed on piping systems.
At the same time the vibration tendency of the piping system is increasing to a great extent due to increased flow
rates of process industries through pipes and usage of high strength thin walled piping (flexible) material during
design. It is seen that Vibration causes many problems in operating plants and the problem should be solved during
design phase. Major of the damaging effects of vibration can be mitigated if proper design philosophy is taken while
designing the system. This article highlights the major causes of vibration and their effects in short.
Vibration can be defined as a continuous to and fro motion from an equilibrium position. There are many reasons
which can cause vibration in a piping system. Few major reasons which could cause the vibration are listed below:
There are a variety of excitation mechanism which can be present in a piping system and can produce vibration and
finally failure resulting from fatigue. Few of those causes are listed below:

 Flow induced Vibration: Caused by the turbulence of the flowing fluid.

 Mechanical forces from Equipment: Caused by the excitation forces of reciprocating and rotary equipment’s
like pumps, compressors etc.
 Pressure Pulsations from reciprocating equipment.
 High frequency Acoustic excitations generated by relief valves, control valves or orifice plates.
 Water Hammer (Surge) or Momentum changes due to sudden valve closure.
 Cavitation or vapour bubble collapse due to localised pressure drop.
 Due to sudden flashing of fluid.
 Periodic pressure disturbances during a flow past the dead end of branch connection/ instrumental items.

Effect of Vibration:
Data has shown that out of all failures and downtimes in any individual plant around 10-15% are because of vibration
induced fatigue. The major effects of vibration are as follows:

 Vibration causes dynamic stresses (fatigue) in a piping system. If this stress is more than critical value it will
initiate a crack which will propagate slowly and end in the failure of the item in concern. The more fatigue
sensitive places are the weld point connections where the branch and header is joined together.
 In addition to dynamic stresses, vibration results in wearing of surfaces in contact due to cyclical relative
motion between them. This phenomenon is known as Fretting.