Fast Unbalancing of Rotating Machines by Combination of Computer Vision and Vibration Data Analysis

Abstract

Unbalance is one of the most common mechanical faults in rotating machines. Although different balancing methods have been developed, most of them require balancing machine to perform unbalance correction. A method using accelerometers data and intricate vibration theories can eliminate the need of balancing machine, and the amplitude and phase of the machine’s vibrations can be identified. However it needs numerous measurements, and in some cases it is even impossible to be implemented. To overcome this problem, a novel approach with reduced number of measurements is presented in this paper. The proposed method requires only two measurements: one from original unbalanced condition, and the other from modified situation after adding an arbitrary trial mass to a marked location. The rotating rotor is being video recorded under original unbalanced and modified situations. The position of the marked area is identified when the amplitude of the sinusoidal vibration response reaches the maximum. The correction mass and its adding location are calculated using proposed method. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our method, an experiment is setup. Vibrations under healthy, unbalanced and balanced conditions are analyzed. The results demonstrated that the developed method is more cost effective with the same accuracy as the other contested balancing techniques.