Paper Ref: S1147_P0508

3
rd
International Conference on Integrity, Reliability and Failure, Porto/Portugal, 20-24 July 2009
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FREQUENT AND PREMATURE FAILURE OF ANTI-FRICTION
BEARINGS: DIAGNOSIS APPROACH?

Jyoti K. Sinha
School of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Civil Engineering (MACE)
B3, Pariser Building, Sackville Street
The University of Manchester
P.O. Box.88
Manchester M60 1QD
Email: Jyoti.Sinha@manchester.ac.uk


ABSTRACT

Several vibration based methods are used in practice to identify the fault in the anti-
friction bearings (ball bearings and roller bearings), however experience suggests that
these methods are just indicative to the bearing health and not sufficient to identify the
root cause if the failure is premature and frequent.

INTRODUCTION

Many rotating machines have rotors that are supported through anti-friction ball or
roller bearings. Faults in such bearings always develop and detection/ appearance of
these faults well in advance is important so that the remedial action to be taken before
any catastrophic failure. A photograph of a typical premature failed roller bearing is
shown in Figure 1 (Sinha and Rao, 2004).



Figure 1 Photograph of a premature failed bearing (Sinha and Rao, 2004)


The most common vibration based techniques for detection of faults in anti-friction
bearings are crest factor and kurtosis measurements (Bendat and Piersol, 1985, Rao,
1999, Barkov et. al., 1995a). The envelope, or more precisely the amplitude
demodulation at the carrier frequency (usually the rotating speed of a machine) is
often used to locate the exact nature of fault by identifying the bearing characteristic
natural frequencies (Barkov et. al., 1995a &b, Randall and Gao, 1996, Bosmans,
1982). McFadden and Smith (1984) gave the review of the techniques available till
1984 for the anti-friction bearing diagnosis. All these approaches give the health of

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the bearing only without looking into the real root cause problem. If the failure is
purely due to the bearing ageing related problem, then these methods are fine, but if
the failure is premature and frequent, whether the approaches used in practice are
enough to downsize the maintenance overhead and increasing machine availability.
The answer is negative. The experience shows that the monitoring of the bearing
health alone is not sufficient if failure is frequent. For such cases, it has been observed
that the dynamics of the complete machine unit comprises of the rotor, bearings and
foundation is responsible for such premature and frequent failure (Sinha and Rao,
2006, Sinha and Balla, 2006). The paper discusses few such case studies.


CASE STUDIES
Here two typical case studies (Sinha and Rao, 2006, Sinha and Balla, 2006) have been
discussed where machines were operated for long periods (years together) without
any significant damage then it has been observed that the frequent failure (2 or more
times in a year) in the anti-friction bearings in either machines. The regular kurtosis
and the envelope measurements were always used to identify the faults in the bearings
and replaced them in time to avoid any catastrophic failure. However these bearing
diagnosis methods have not been able to provide any root cause for such frequent
failures of the bearings which is expected the way the anti-friction diagnosis methods
have been developed. The modal testing (Ewins, 2000) and/or details vibration
diagnosis on the complete machines during the normal machine operation (rather than
vibration measurements on the bearing pedestals) that have helped in solving the
problems of the bearing frequent failures which have been discussed here.


CASE#1 (Sinha and Rao 2006)

It is a case of a centrifugal pump commissioned in 1985 (Sinha and Rao, 2006). The
pump had no failure till 1990, and then it has a long history of anti-friction bearing
failure. The vibration based condition monitoring on the pump (Prasad et al., 2002)
had usually shown high 2X component (two times the pump RPM) in the vibration
spectrum, and faults in the bearings was detected by the kurtosis and the envelope
analysis of the measured responses on the bearing pedestals. This information has
always been utilized to replace the faulty bearings in well planned shutdown before
any major failure occurred. The photograph of a typically failed bearing of this pump
is already shown in Figure 1 (Sinha and Rao, 2004). However the condition
monitoring could not identify the root cause for frequent failure of bearings. Hence
the modal tests were performed on the pump assembly to understand the dynamic
behaviour.

Figure 2 shows schematic of the pump assembly. It is a horizontally mounted
centrifugal pump with the axial inlet, and the radial outlet. The pump and the motor
shafts are rigidly coupled to a shaft carrying a flywheel (FW). The FW is supported
by a grease lubricated radial bearings on pump side and oil lubricated taper roller
thrust bearing on the other side. The pump is driven by a 540kW electric motor
operating at 1492RPM with a discharge rate of 21 klpm at 11kg/sq. cm (Sinha and
Rao, 2006). The pump is mounted directly on the base plates embedded to the rigid
concrete floor.

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Figure 2 Schematic of a Pump assembly and the measurement (dot) locations (Sinha and Rao, 2006)



Modal Testing and Diagnosis
Sinha and Rao (2006) have conducted modal tests on the pump assembly using an
instrumented hammer to give impulse excitation to the pump assembly in a frequency
band up to around 500Hz, and the responses of the assembly from different locations
and in different directions (the vertical, the axial along shaft axis, and the lateral to
shaft axis) were collected from number of accelerometers. The measurement locations
are also shown in Figure 2.

The frequencies 44.51Hz, 57.96Hz, 65.89Hz, and 141.77Hz are the natural
frequencies identified by the modal tests. The most interesting observation made was
the mode at 57.96Hz had significant deflection only at both the bearing pedestals as
shown in Figure 3. This frequency in the FRF at the bearing pedestals appeared as a
broad banded peak and has almost 14dB amplification at 2X component of the pump
vibration. It is typically seen in the frequency response function (FRF) plot in z-
direction (lateral to the rotor axis) at the bearing pedestal (near to motor side) in
Figure 4. The drop in the natural frequency close to the 2X, and its broad banded
nature must be due to the looseness between the base plate and the concrete resulting
in the non-linear interaction between the base plate and the concrete surface. The
suspicion of such non-linear behaviour has further been confirmed by the higher order
spectrum and the wavelet analysis (Sinha and Rao, 2006).



x
z

y
Flow

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Figure 3 The mode shape at 57.96Hz of the pump assembly showing deflection at bearing pedestals
only (Sinha and Rao, 2006)




Figure 4 A typical FRF plot at bearing pedestal (near to Motor) in z-direction (Sinha and Rao, 2006)


Bearing
Pedestal
Pump
Motor

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Hence the experimentally identified broad banded natural frequency at 57.96Hz and
its closeness to 2X component has been identified as the main reason for the failure. It
is because a small 2X component generated due to even a small shaft misalignment at
the coupling/asymmetric shaft must have triggered the resonance at 57.96Hz which in
turn leads to increase in the shaft misalignment. Such induced misalignment could
cause damage to the bearings prematurely. It can be solved either by stiffening the
roots of bearing pedestals or by proper grouting the base plate in concrete. Sinha and
Rao (2006) gave the details of vibration measurements, data analysis, diagnosis, and
the solution suggested.


CASE#2 (Sinha and Balla, 2006)

It is a case of a blower system shown in Figure 5, where the problem of the frequent
bearings failure is identified, and solved by the ODS analysis (McHargue and
Richardson, 1993, Richardson, 1997). The blower system consists of a motor of
40HP, 1460rpm drives the blower at 1070rpm through a V-belt arrangement (Sinha
and Balla, 2006, Balla and Rao, 2004). The chassis of the blower system is isolated
with the concrete floor by isolation springs. The driven shaft is supported by two anti-
friction bearings, which are resting on the bearing support block (bearing pedestal).
The Blower is 1 m in diameter and has 16 blades.

The blower system was installed almost 2 decades ago, and the machine had no
problem for 15 years. In early 2001, the problem in the machine started with high
vibration and the frequent failure of both the bearings (Sinha and Balla, 2006).

Vibration Measurement and Diagnosis
The vibration measurements in year 2002 on the bearings in the horizontal, vertical,
and axial directions by Balla and Rao (2004) indicate the dominance vibrations at the
belt speed (12.5Hz) at the bearing 1 and the blower speed (17.5Hz) and the twice of
the blade passing frequency (2 x BPF) at the bearing 2 which is close to the blower
fan. Further investigation by Balla and Rao (2004) using the ODS analysis during the
machine operation confirms that the out of phase movement of the bearing pedestals
with respect to the blower casing and the motor pedestal at the blower RPM. The
ODS is shown in Figure 6. This motion must be loading the bearings which lead to
the frequent failure.

Hence based on the observations, the two suspicions were raised (Balla and Rao,
2004, Sinha and Balla, 2006)- (1) there may be looseness in the blade anchoring
causing the 2 x BPF frequency component (Bosmans, 1982, Goldman, 1999), and (2)
some angular misalignment between the driven pulley and the blower shaft (Crawford
and Crawford, 1992), the location is highlighted in the encircled area in Figure 5. The
site has confirmed the suspects, and the corrected the defects in year 2002. Since then
no failure is reported. The details of the measurements and analysis are given the
paper by Balla and Rao (2004).




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Top View























Front View


Figure 5 Schematic diagram of the Motor- Blower assembly and the measurement locations (Sinha and
Balla, 2006)


1
2
3 4
5
6 7
8
9 10
11 12
Bearing
Support
Bearing 1

Bearing 2

Motor
V-Belt Drive
Isolation Springs

Exhaust Fan


Angular
misalignment
suspected

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Figure 6 The ODS of the assembly at the blower speed 17.5Hz (Sinha and Balla, 2006)


CONCLUDING REMARKS

Vibration based fault diagnosis methods for the anti-friction bearings are good for
identifying the presence of faults well in advance, however if the failure of the
bearings are frequent, then it is essential to carry out some additional tests like modal
testing and/or ODS analysis to understand the dynamics of the complete machine as a
unit to identify the root cause for the repeated failure. Once the root cause has been
identified, the appropriate remedy can be done to avoid the repeated failure. It will not
only increase the availability of machines, but also downsize the maintenance
overhead and enhance the plant safety. This has been successfully demonstrated here
through two typical case studies.


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