Are you inspecting bearing defects to identify root cause?
How can Vibration Analysis help detect a bearing defect?
30-Second Summary
- Vibration analysis can help uncover a bearing defect, but can’t do much to enhance plant reliability.
- Detecting the root cause of the bearing defect is equally important when it comes to ensuring that the same problem doesn’t occur in the future.
- RMS offers Online, Public, and Onsite ISO 18436-2 CAT I to CAT IV courses for vibration analysis.
Bearing Defect
Identifying a bearing defect using vibration analysis is not going to improve plant reliability. To do this we have to look at the root cause of the defect and take action to prevent the same problem re-occurring in the future.
Here is a nice example from a large ID Fan, after a 3 month shut down of the plant. The fan was restarted, straight away an outer race defect was picked up on the Fan NDE bearing by an RMS engineer.
The damaged bearing was planned in for replacement. At RMS we are always trying to find the root cause so the bearing was cleaned and inspected. You can clearly see the bearing has suffered from corrosion whilst the fan was stationary. Spalling has started to occur in one area.
In this bearing defect case the root cause of the problem was that the fan was not rotated during its 3 month shutdown. This allowed corrosion to take place within the bearing leading to a defect upon start-up. Plans are now in place for future shutdowns to rotate the shafts to eliminate this type of defect.
Real-World Bearing Defect Diagnosis using Vibration Analysis
In this video, Stuart Walker provides a comprehensive, hands-on tutorial on how to diagnose a bearing defect through data collection, analysis, and inspection, identifying the root cause of the damaged bearing.
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FAQs
How important is Vibration Analysis for solving bearing defects?
It is important, but alone it’s not going to improve plant reliability. To do this we have to look at the root cause of the defect and take action to prevent the same problem re-occurring in the future.
Do fans need to rotate even during a 3 month shutdown?
In this case, that was the root cause. Without rotation it allowed corrosion to take place within the bearing leading to a defect upon start-up. Plans are now in place for future shutdowns to rotate the shafts to eliminate this type of defect.
Do you offer Vibration Analysis Courses?
We do indeed! Students can choose from ISO 18436-2 CAT I to CAT IV. Courses are certified by BINDT or Mobius Institue. Study options include: Online, Public and Onsite. See the Vibration Analysis Courses page for more details.
Last updated: 16th May 2025
Nice insights! Hopefully this will help others in a similar situation. Thank you for sharing.