Significance of vibration diagnosis of rotating machines during installation and commissioning: A summary of few cases

Satisfactory operation of any machine is always important for plant safety, increased productivity, and low downtime and maintenance overhead. Such requirements could usually be fulfilled by proper design and installation of machines at site. The design part is perhaps more mature in most cases, however installation may play a significant role in the dynamic behaviour even for properly designed machines. Vibration based condition monitoring and codes are well known and widely followed for most of the conventional rotating machines like pumps, motors, turbines, etc. However many rotating machines often used in different process and power plants are not of conventional type wherein condition monitoring is also important, but the codes and the diagnostic techniques may not directly be applicable. The vibration measurements and analysis during commissioning is important to resolve the problems related to the machine installation, if any, and identify the parameters for future condition monitoring of different kinds of machines. It has been experienced that the vibration diagnosis during commissioning gives significant information about the proper installation vis-à-vis the vibration parameters to look for and the locations of measurements for future condition monitoring. The paper presents a summary of the few such case studies.