Achieving high quality and consistent results every time

Reducing excessive vibration through dynamic balancing

Unbalanced components in rotating machinery can cause excessive vibration, resulting in noise, wear and tear of bearings and structural damage. Vibration will always be part of any machine that rotates, and some vibration levels can be acceptable. Instead of trying to get rid of all vibration, achieving machinery balance as far as possible is what we aim for. Ensuring our balancing equipment is accurately calibrated and monitored is imperative.

The resolution and minimum amount (of unbalance) detectable is the key to any balancing equipment, measured in units of specific unbalance – gram-millimeters per kilogram of rotor weight. The latter is the minimum amount detectable that the balancing machine can achieve and is a measure of the highest level of accuracy of the balancing machine.

How are the machines calibrated?

To ensure high quality and consistent results, it’s imperative to run control tests. All of our balancing machines are externally calibrated by the original equipment supplier and we carry out back-to-back testing. Calibration typically involves a test rotor, a test weight and three measurement runs:

1. A reference run without test weights attached to the rotor
2. A measurement run with a test weight attached on the left plane at specific angular positions
3. A third run with test weights on the right plane at specific angular positions

These control tests will determine that the machine is measuring a corresponding magnitude at the corresponding angle to the applied test weight.

How is accuracy achieved every time?

We also carry out regular operational (OQ) and performance qualifications (PQ) whereby we run tests and check the quality of the results. OQ assesses and records the performance of each individual function of the balancing machine to identify any issues that may impact final product quality. We ensure that every time a new component is set up to be balanced, the calibration is verified by the operator using known test weights at particular positions (Operator Verification).

PQ on the other hand, involves a number of tests and inspections to assess that our balancing equipment is both compliant with regulation standards and performing reliably on a consistent basis, meeting the user’s real-world needs.

What balancing capacity does WDB have?

We have an in-house balancing capacity of 30 tonnes and can accurately balance all types of rotating parts on our high-precision machines, including rotors, impellers, fans and shafts from just a few grams to 30 tonnes. We can also achieve the lowest ISO quality tolerance over a wide range of service speeds.