The tools and techniques we use to perform vibration analysis fulfill two objectives: reactive, and proactive. Proactive maintenance is detecting problems so that they can be rectified, before they breakdown and cause disruption in work. Reactive maintenance is using the vibration analysis to find out the reason for the breakdown of a particular machine or equipment. You can leverage vibration analysis and monitoring to carry out quantitative examination of structural weakness, whether there is any resonance, or if any of the components are loose. 

The continuous monitoring of vibration helps in ensuring optimal machine performance. Cutting-edge technology enables you to read vibrations from various machines continuously and in real time. This data is sent directly to your computer or mobile device, through the cloud. Specifically, these are the key benefits in detail:

• Monitoring vital equipment – these are those machines or pieces of equipment that are likely to cause huge losses in the case of damage or breakdown. Anomalies in the vibration spectrum can be detected early on with continuous monitoring, and provides insights about issues with lubrication, defects with bearings, and so on. This allows you to fix those issues and prevent major problems from surfacing.
• Monitoring equipment used most frequently – most factories function round the clock, and stop only once in a month or 3 months, for routine maintenance; frequent stoppages result in loss of productivity, and hence, revenues. By continuously monitoring the vibration online, the condition of machinery which is used continuously can be determined, and alerts can be sent when the condition deteriorates.
• Monitoring equipment not accessed easily – often, factories have machines or equipment installed in places that are difficult to reach: on rooftops, in very high or very low temperature rooms, and so on. Remote vibration monitoring helps to constantly check for vibration discrepancies, so that maintenance can be quickly performed to resolve issues. This eliminates sudden downtimes, as well as the need for maintenance staff to unnecessarily access dangerous locations.

• Rotating Equipment Vibration Analysis
• Structural Vibration Analysis
• Finite Element Analysis
• Stress & Strain Analysis

Every component within a machine vibrates in a different manner, generating a distinctive sound, and leaving a unique fingerprint in the spectrum; this fingerprint resembles a linear pattern. In case there is some damage, the pattern is disrupted, and the specialist can identify the reason: bearing damage, misalignment, or imbalance. They can also decide if urgent action is required, or it can be carried forward to the scheduled maintenance service.

Vibration analysis is carried out on both time waveform and the frequency spectrum of the vibration signals.  For analyzing on the frequency spectrum, the Fourier Transform is applied on the time waveform. 

To detect the manner and severity of the vibration anomalies, time domain analysis is conducted on vibration waveforms that are recorded in chronological order.  Parameters like peak amplitude, standard deviation, kurtosis, root mean square, skewness, crest factors and others are extracted and examined thoroughly. This method assesses the general conditions of the machinery that’s being monitored. 

It’s essential that frequency spectrum analysis is included when it comes to analyzing vibrations in rotating machinery. This is because a multi-component, complex machine generates varied vibrations, as the vibrations from each component tend to combine. Using only the time waveforms for examining the condition of essential components can be difficult, and even ineffective. Frequency analysis facilitates the study of vibrations of individual components as it is capable of decomposing time waveforms and depicting the vibration pattern repetition.