Vibration-Based Condition Monitoring for Rotating Machinery with Different Flexible Supports

In a previous study, a combined vibration and temperature analysis technique for the diagnosis of commonly encountered rotor related faults produced good practicable results even without the use of temperature. This was, however, developed on an experimental rig with relatively rigid supports. The objective of the current study is to investigate the transferability of the said approach on rotating machines with relatively flexible supports. A fault diagnosis (FD) method which compares vibration data acquired from similar machines with different flexible supports is also considered here. The experimental rig used in the previous study was modified to accommodate two different relatively flexible supports. The results of the previously proposed technique showed that diagnosis is insensitive to the support types used. The result of the newly introduced combined FD approach gave improved diagnosis over the previously proposed technique. The observations made are presented in this paper.