Basics of turbomachinery balance

Introduction
• Unbalance is the most common cause of
excessive vibration in high-speed
turbomachinery.
• High vibration can cause bearing, seal, and rotor
damage, support system damage, increased
noise, etc.
• To control vibration, rotors are dynamically
balanced. Although there are many balance
standards, there is no practical method to relate
vibration and balance. Flexible rotors present
additional challenges.
 Objective
• To provide a general introduction to balancing,
discuss the various balance standards, and
present some of the issues with balancing
flexible rotors.
• A rotor with a single disc between bearings
will be used as an example throughout this
presentation.
Unbalance
An unbalance condition
exists when the mass
centerline does not
coincide with the rotating
centerline. Referring to
Figure 2, if there were a
heavy spot at one place
on the disc, the mass
centerline would be
slightly displaced from the
rotating centerline. If the
rotor were placed in vee-
blocks, the rotor would
turn until the heavy spot
was on the bottom.
• This is an example of a simple-static unbalance. This
rotor could be statically balanced by attaching a
weight equal to the original heavy spot on the
opposite side of the rotor at the same distance from
the geometric centerline.
A couple unbalance exists when there are
heavy spots at each end of the rotor, and
the mass centerline intersects the
rotating centerline at the rotor center of
gravity. See Figure 3. Unlike a simple-
static unbalance, a couple unbalance can
only be detected by spinning the rotor
and measuring the resultant unbalance
forces or the vibration.
• The most common unbalance
condition is a random
combination of static and couple
unbalances. This is called a
dynamic unbalance. In this case,
the mass centerline is both tilted
and displaced from the rotating
centerline. See Figure 4.
• As with a couple unbalance, a
dynamic unbalance can only be
detected by spinning the rotor
and measuring the resultant
unbalance forces or vibration
If a rotor is made from several components, like an impeller
mounted on a shaft, the assembly process might produce changes
in geometry that could cause an unbalance. It is typically
recommended that each part of the rotor, including the shaft, be
component balanced before assembling the rotor.
It is typically necessary to make a mandrel
to balance components like an impeller. If
the unbalance is contained within one
transverse plane, then all the balance
corrections can be made in that plane.
This is called a single-plane balance. If the
component unbalance is contained in two
transverse planes, then the balance
corrections need to be made in two
planes. This is called a two-plane balance.
See Figure 5.
• Once the individual components are balanced,
the rotor assembly can begin. If multiple
components are mounted on a shaft, like a multi-
impeller rotor, it is normally necessary that the
rotor be balanced after every 1-2 components are
assembled on the rotor. The balance corrections
are made on the last components assembled on
the rotor.
• As long as the speed at which the balancing takes
place is below the first-bending critical speed, the
balance corrections made will be good for all
speeds. As a result, many components and rotors
are balanced at speeds between 100 and 1,000
rpm. This is typically called low-speed balancing.
The force caused by a rotor's unbalance mass
can be calculated from Newton's second law.
The unbalance mass causes a centripetal force,
which can be calculated from the general
equation:

In terms of unbalance, this formula becomes:

• Since there are multiple unbalance masses in a
typical rotor, the force that is the measured is the
resultant of all the individual heavy
spots. Because of the random distribution of
unbalance masses, the sensitivity of balance
machines, and other factors, it is not possible to
perfectly balance a rotor.
• There is always some unbalance left after
balancing. This is commonly referred to as the
residual unbalance. There are many balancing
standards and the allowable residual unbalance
varies. Three of the more popular balance
standards are: API-617, MIL-STD-167 and ISO
1940-1.
 Balance Machines
• Balance machines are typically classified as soft bearing or
hard bearing. In a soft-bearing balance machine, the rotor
is mounted on a flexible support system. The natural
frequency of the combined support system and rotor is
lower than the balancing speed.
• The support system in a hard-bearing balance machine is
very stiff, and balancing is done below the natural
frequency of the combined rotor support system. In these
machines, strain gauge transducers mounted on the
supports are typically used to determine the unbalance
force.
• Since unbalance is a function of speed regardless of rotor
size or configuration, these machines will generally accept a
larger range of rotor sizes and weights than a soft-bearing
machine without any need of re-calibration.
 High-Speed Balancing
• High-speed balancing is defined as "at-speed"
balancing, or balancing at the design-rotor
operating speed.
• For turbomachinery rotors, high-speed balancing
is normally done in a vacuum chamber to reduce
the power when balancing, and to reduce heating
due to windage. It is not necessary to high-speed
balance rigid rotors since these rotors operate
below the first bending critical. A flexible rotor
operates above the first bending critical.
• When a rotor speed approaches a bending critical, the
rotor deflects or bends. This causes a change in the
rotating centerline, which can change the rotor balance.
Depending on such factors as damping, unbalance
distribution, and other factors, the rotor can deflect in
different ways. The typical undamped mode shapes of the
first several bending critical speeds are shown in Figure 6.
When high-speed balancing, it is important to
perform a rotor dynamics analysis first to
understand the mode shapes, in order to
determine the appropriate balance planes. To
reduce vibrations as the rotor goes through a
critical speed and to reduce vibrations at
operating speed, correction weights might
need to be added near the location of
maximum deflection.