Detection of structural elasticity failure in rotating equipment by vibration analysis, one of the predictive maintenance strategy methods

Air fans are equipment that directs the gas phase fluid used in the industry, takes the air from one place in a certain volume and transmits it to another place. Its role in the process is to provide rapid drying of the product by the forced convection heat transfer process by creating flow in the fluid bed dryer. The air fan is a primary equipment for this process. A malfunction that may occur in this equipment causes production to stop and problems in product quality. In the measurements made with a vibration measuring device and other equipment, malfunctions that have occurred or may occur in the machine are determined as a result of the evaluation of vibration frequencies and severity. As a result, early diagnosis of damage to rotating equipment (fan, pump, compressor, etc.) is one of the most important tasks of condition monitoring-oriented maintenance programs. In each rotating equipment, many different faults (bearing and gear failure, unbalance, etc.) may occur. Structural flexibility is one of these failures, which is also seen as a machine failure. However, structural flexibility failure is very difficult to detect with sensor vibration trend monitoring methods fixed on the equipment from a single point. In order to detect the structural flexibility failure by vibration analysis, the velocity spectrum, acceleration spectrum and envelope spectrum graphs should be examined by taking measurements from all 3 axes of the bearings, and it should be ensured that they are within the permissible value ranges. Analysis with time waveform graphs does not give the expected response to structural flexibility failure. In this study, the early diagnosis of structural flexibility failure in an air fan in a mining facility is handled by spectrum analysis, by means of predictive maintenance tool vibration analyzer measurements. Spectrum analysis carried out to determine from which part and which bed region the flexibility is, is explained in detail. The fault was eliminated and the system was restored to suitable working conditions.