High Quality Dynamic balancing is required for all types of rotating Machinery including Fans, Blowers, air handlers and propellers, impellers , motors and other special rotating components from every industry imaginable. Balancing in our shop is performed on OEM parts and repaired parts before installation. Almost any component from a few grams to 20,000 pounds can be Dynamically or statically balanced in our shop. Field portable balancing can be performed on any rotating machinery at your facility. While portable field balancing is similar in process to static and dynamic balancing in a balancing machine, at our facility, In–situ Balancing can difficult to undertake because it often has to be conducted under less than ideal conditions.
Dynamic balancing equipment in situ (where it is installed) can be made difficult where system resonance exists. Knowing how to identify a system that is in resonance is an important part of a balancing technician’s job. The best portable balancing electronics use four-channel data acquisition. Understanding telltale signs in the raw vibration data can tell you when system resonance is present. The trigger for making a call that a system is resonance usually starts with the technician having difficulty making balance corrections that produce efficient results. Skilled Technicians like at HI-TEK can detect that before spending valuable time experimenting.
A perfect example of system resonance we’ve encountered was a US Navy warship powered by two Rolls Royce 50,000 hp MT30 gas turbines driving into a combiner gearbox with a driveshaft coupled to the rear of the turbine. The combiner mixes power from two 15,000 hp diesel engines with turbine power. The ship is designed to cruise on diesel power and the Turbines can be off or running a “core idle”. Core idle is 2400 rpm. Full power is 3200 to 3300 rpm.
HI-TEK had been tasked to trim balance the output shafts that are connected to the turbine engines. The shafts are 24” diameter using Bibby Turboflex disc couplings. The shafts are about 20 feet long. The Turbine is instrumented using Four accelerometers. The balancing electronics solve the balance correction requirements even though some system resonance exists.
HI-TEK has serviced 8 ships with ten turbines in this configuration.
This gives you some idea of the wide range of rotating systems that we’re often called on to balance out in the field. That’s why we offer complete portable field dynamic balancing services at customers’ facilities for those hard-to-service systems and components including:
- Roof-top mounted machinery
- Large Difficult-to-ship items
- Rotors that are expensive to remove from the installation
- Rotors that require trim balancing after installation
- CNC lathe fixture Balancing
- Induced draft fan balancing
- Shredders
- Tree and wood chippers
- Hammer Mills
- Rock Crushers and much more.
Our field service technicians and portable balancing, testing, and analysis equipment, including Commtest vBSeriesR vibration analyzers, are ready to travel just about anywhere to service virtually any rotating component and system.
