TACTICS & PRACTICES
Get Back to balance
Unbalanced rotors can damage more than just bearings
Rotor balancing is an important tactic for reducing
vibration stress on bearings. The reason that unbalanced
rotors damage bearings is that the peak load area in an
unbalanced rotor is forcing lubrication away from the load
zone, the lubricant is being broken down, the bearing is
fatiguing, or a combination of these can occur, says Bob
Matthews, reliability manager at Royal Purple (www.royal-
purple.com). Overloading and under-lubricating bearings
is going to damage the bearings and in most cases is avoid-
able by operating the rotors to design. The best approach to
avoid bearing failure is reliability maintenance.
A rotor imbalance occurs when its center of gravity is
different from its center of rotation, explains Jarrod Pottei-
ger, product and educational services manager for Des-Case
(www.descase.com). This can be the result of many factors
including variations in material density, tolerances in fabrica-
tion, unsymmetrical parts, or shifting parts during operation
due to thermal, aerodynamic, or other effects, he says. Rotor
imbalance causes cyclic loading and vibration that directly
impact bearing life as load and speed are the determining fac-
tors of a bearings L10 life. A 1-oz imbalance at a 12-in. radius
can reduce bearing life by 50%. Conversely, reducing vibra-
tion by 50% can increase bearing life by as much as 700%.
Precision balance and alignment become increasingly
critical as rotational speeds increase, so plants utilizing
high-speed machinery should pay attention to this aspect
of the reliability program, suggests Potteiger. As with most
aspects of maintenance and reliability, a successful balanc-
ing program requires education, experience, and the right
tools, he offers. Modern dynamic balancing equipment
and techniques can drastically reduce vibration, thereby
optimizing the life of bearings and other components.
Roller bearings take up the strain on the machine, says
John Bernet, product and application specialist at Fluke
(www.fluke.com). If the shaft is imbalanced, the forces on
the shaft cause the bearing to wear much faster, he says. If
the motor and pump shafts are misaligned, the flexible cou-
pling will help some, but there are still high forces on each
shaft causing the bearings to wear much faster.
Vibration testers should be used on a routine basis to
measure rotating machines and determine if mechanical
faults are causing wear on the bearings, explains Bernet.
When faults arise, instead of just replacing bearings, the
root cause of the fault needs to be determined, he says.
Balance can be defined as the state of the mass distribution
within the rotating assembly about its axis of rotation, explains
Jack Zedek, senior mechanical engineer at Baldor Electric
(www.baldor.com). The eccentricities of this mass distribution
are referred to as unbalance, he says. The amount of unbal-
ance is stated in units of mass times a distance, such as grams-
inches, ounce-inches, gram-centimeters or gram-millimeters.
The amount of unbalance contributes additional radial load
into the machinery bearings. If the bearings are lightly radially
Precision balance and alignment
become increasingly critical as
rotational speeds increase.
or axially loaded, such as a coupled duty motor, then the effects
of unbalance might not be as great in a theoretical sense when
calculating a bearing L10 life. For example, if the theoretical
L10 life calculations drop from 1.5 million hours to 1.4 million
hours because of the contributions from additional radial
loading, would anyone really care? However, if the machinery
is heavily loaded such as a belted duty motor with high radial
loads, or a pump or fan motor with high axial thrusts, the addi-
tion of the forces into the bearing could have significant L10 life
reductions for the bearings.
Bearings, like all materials, have an upper limit to the
amount of tensile load that can be applied to them before
they fail, explains Alan Friedman, senior instructor at
Mobius Institute (www.mobiusinstitute.com). This is called
their tensile strength, he explains. Fatigue loading is when
a repetitive or cyclic load is applied to a material. This is the
type of load that vibration from an unbalance puts on the
bearings. The load is positive, negative, positive, negative
and repeats itself every time the shaft goes around. Think of
bending a paper clip back and forth.
The problem with this sort of fatigue loading is that it can
cause damage to the bearing, even if the load is well below
the upper tensile strength of the material, says Friedman.
Additionally, the damage is cumulative, meaning that the
more revolutions of the shaft, the closer the bearing comes
to failure, he explains. More unbalance increases these
loads and hence leads to earlier failure. In addition to being
a source of damage to bearings, vibration from unbalance
www.PLANTSERVICES.com February 2013 15
TACTICS & PRACTICES

can cause other problems. Pump seals, couplings, shafts, and
foundations are also subject to fatigue that can be hastened
by increased levels of vibration. Additionally, vibration
traveling from the machine into the floor can affect other
machines, even causing false brinelling of bearings in
standby machines, and perhaps the quality of the product
being manufactured.
Proper balancing of a rotor to required limits will help
ensure that the rotor will operate within acceptable vibra-
tion limits during operation, says Greg Chatlos, product
engineer in the drive technologies division of Siemens
Industry (www.usa.siemens.com/industry). The effect of an
unbalanced rotor on bearings is not only dependent on the
residual unbalance, but the rotors operating speed, as well.
The main concern here is vibration where the rotor shaft
journal moves independent relative to the bearing outer
race or Babbitt, he says. This creates a pounding force on
the bearing, which can lead to a fatigue failure. A rotor with
an unbalance that operates at a high speed will have higher
vibration levels than the same rotor at a lower speed. Indus-
try standards such as ISO 1940-1 and API 541 for induction
motors govern the suggested balance limits. For instance,
API 541 requires that a rotor must be balanced to within 4
W/N limits, where W is the static load on each bearing and
N is the rotor speed.
Shaft vibration in machines generates tremendous
forces, says Howard Penrose, PhD, CMRP, vice president
at Dreisilker Electric Motors (www.dreisilker.com). As the
vibration occurs, even with a machine running, oil, which
is an incompressible fluid, is forced out from between the
surfaces of the bearing resulting in metal-to-metal contact,
he says. As this occurs, deformities in the rolling elements
and races occur generating rough surfaces and increased
friction. Depending on the severity of the unbalance or
vibration, the equipment can fail rapidly.
When possible, ensure all components are balanced
on the shaft they will be operating on, says Penrose. The
reason for this is that different components balanced within
tolerance may add up to significant unbalance and vibration
when assembled together, he explains.

Celebrating 140 Years

On February 21, 2013, Atlas Copco celebrates our 140th birthday. From our
beginnings as a manufacturer of railroad rolling stock, we have grown to
hold world-leading positions in compressors, construction and mining
equipment, power tools and assembly systems. Our experiences during the
past 14 decades have guided us to our focus today on sustainable productivity.
Today, in the United States alone, we have 109 locations, 1.7 million sq.-ft.
of manufacturing, production, distribution and office space and employ over
4,500 people as well as working with hundreds of carefully selected distributors.
Much has changed since 1873, but this has remained constant: Atlas Copco
is committed to developing leading-edge technology and taking care of
customers. We feel the best way to celebrate 140 years is to acknowledge the
customers that made it possible. Thank you for your business. We look forward
to serving you far into the future.

866-688-9611
marketing.services@us.atlascopco.com