Growth in Vibration Measurement Techniques for High Speed Machines – Case Study of Power Plants

Abstract

During the last 50 years, there has been a good level of quality research in the field of material science, structural design, manufacturing techniques, installation methods and quality control of power plant machineries. All this has led to reduced factor of safety, higher slenderness ratio, but better operational performance. Also, the operating speeds have gone up and machines with better efficiency and higher levels of outputs are now possible. With such developments, however, the machineries become more prone to vibrations resulting into complexities to control and keep them within safe limits. Under such circumstances it is essential to identify any abnormal condition as soon as it arises and prevent the machineries from damage and consequent failure. The growth and development of the vibration measuring techniques has been phenomenal. Today, we can do accurate analysis to exactly locate the problem, but this was not possible, a few years back. This paper attempts to define the path of journey with major milestones, from a simple vibration measurement in mV units some 50 years ago to present day recording of complex vibration spectra for exactly pointing out the cause of vibration with a higher degree of reliability.