Experimental study on the Condition Monitoring of Shaft Unbalance by using Vibrations Spectrum and phase Analysis

Predictive maintenance strongly depends upon the accurate condition monitoring of rotating machinery. The industry 4.0 is becoming more prominent because it includes integrated intelligent systems for the detection and correction of machinery faults. The industry 4.0 can only be implemented if the machines are intelligent enough to detect faults automatically. This research article presents vibrations spectrum and phase analysis for detecting the shaft unbalance. SpectraQuest's Machinery Fault Simulator™ was used to create unbalance on a simple rotor-bearing system, the vibrations data were acquired through accelerometers connected with data acquisition card. The unbalance mass was placed at inner and outer radius of the rotor disks and vibrations were analyzed with three different speeds. The vibrations spectra of the unbalance shaft showed peak at 1X frequency component and vibrations were in-phase between rotor bearings. This study proposed that the vibrations spectrum along with phase analysis is an excellent technique for the detection of shaft unbalance. This research article provides technical support to industry 4.0 in detecting shaft unbalance.