The importance of impeller balancing and inspection

When an impeller is out of balance, the tell-tale signs to look for include:

• Elevated vibration and noise levels
• High energy use due to imbalances (additional load on bearings)
• Temperature rise on bearings

What are the benefits of impeller balancing and inspection?

A regularly maintained and balanced impeller will:

• Ensure the impeller runs with low vibration, reducing wear and damage on bearings and associated plant machinery
• Improve efficiency due to less loading on bearings
• Reduce noise
• Improve reliability, reduce unexpected breakdowns and costly downtime
• Save you money in the long-run

But won’t the impeller already be balanced by the manufacturer?

Impellers usually come ready-balanced from the manufacturer, however, they may have been balanced on a single plane (static) which may not be adequate in real-time operation. 

In addition, if there is vibration on the final assembly (post-manufacture balancing), this could be due to fit tolerances between the impeller and impeller shaft. Other added rotating parts may also influence the final assembly balance. It is for this reason that the impeller may require trim balancing to reduce vibration levels.

It is good practice, therefore, to carry out vibration checks on a newly installed machine to create a baseline vibration (reference vibration levels).

How often should you carry out impeller balancing and inspection?

This all depends on how critical your machine’s operation is to your wider operations, as well as its rotational speed and size. Ideally, we would recommend impeller balancing and inspection every month, however, if there are cost constraints, every 3 months would be adequate. To learn more about industrial balancing processes, take a look at our static vs. dynamic balancing post.

What we can do

At WDB Ltd, our expert team will carry out maintenance checks on your impeller to identify: