This focused introduction will explain the what, how and why of static-couple balancing from a practical point of view.

This 94-page handbook (3.5" x 6", 9cm x 15cm) contains carefully selected materials designed to assist repair firms in their everyday work. Just as important, your customers and potential customers can use this pocket handbook as a handy reference for mechanical data for motors and driven equipment.

As with most other machines commonly repaired in EASA service centers, dynamic balancing on pump impellers is an important concern. Excessive imbalance imparts forces on bearings, reducing their lives and subjecting machine mountings to vibratory energy that deteriorates foundations.

Al igual que con la mayoría de las otras máquinas reparadas comúnmente en los centros de servicio de EASA, el balanceo dinámico de los impulsores de las bombas es una cuestión importante. El desbalanceo excesivo imparte fuerzas sobre los rodamientos, reduciendo su vida útil y sometiendo los soportes de las máquinas a una energía vibratoria que deteriora las fundaciones.

Many EASA service centers conduct vibration-based machine condition monitoring programs for their customers. This is a valuable revenue source that aligns the service center as a team member with the customer to provide uptime on their machinery and control maintenance costs. It also puts some of the responsibility for predicting machine failures on service center personnel who may be managing vibration data for hundreds of machines in multiple customer facilities. Given that vibration data is complex, composed of amplitude, frequency and phase, that can be a daunting task.

Muchos centros de servicio llevan a cabo programas de monitoreo por condición basado en la vibración de las máquinas para sus clientes. Esta es una fuente valiosa de ingresos que integra al centro de servicio como miembro del equipo del cliente para garantizar el tiempo de funcionamiento de su maquinaria y controlar los costos de mantenimiento. Esto también pone parte de la responsabilidad de predecir fallos en las máquinas, en el personal del centro de servicio que puede estar gestionando los datos de vibración para cientos de máquinas en múltiples instalaciones del cliente. Dado que los datos de vibración compuestos por amplitud, frecuencia y fase son complejos, esta puede ser una ardua tarea.

High vibration is a common problem for motors that are installed on top of vertical pumps. Its source can be a mechanical issue with the pump, motor or coupling or even hydraulic forces from the pump.

On occasion, service centers are asked to balance fan blades that are designed for an overhung mounting. The fan blade may be received mounted on the shaft, or without any shaft. The decision has to be made about how to mount the rotor in the balancing machine. One solution is to fabricate a mandrel to balance the fan blade between the machine pedestals. The other alternative is to mount the fan blade on the end of the shaft in an overhung configuration, with the fan blade outboard of both balancing machine pedestals. This would be the more expedient method if the fan blade is already mounted on the shaft in the overhung configuration.  How the fan blade is mounted doesn’t change the balance, as long as the fit to the shaft doesn’t change. So the question is, “Which is easiest?” Often it is easiest to mount the rotor in the overhung configuration, but balancing in that configuration presents some challenges. Those challenges are addressed here. 

An understanding of basic vectors and balancing vector pictures is essential for optimizing dynamic balancing in the service center and in field balancing. This paper provides the foundation for balancing tasks either in-house or on-site.

This article describes machine balancing of the rotating components of motors and generators, primarily rotors and armatures. The methods described here, in general, can be applied to on-site balancing if the rotating component is accessible. The intent is to describe the methods of attaching balance weights, not determining acceptable balance level or the location and amount of correction weight.