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Balancing of Rotating Masses
Balancing of Rotating Masses
SUMMARY
In heavy industrial machines such as steam turbines, internal combustion engines and electric
generators, unbalanced rotating bodies could cause vibration, which in turn could cause
catastrophic failure. This chapter explains the importance of balancing rotating masses. It also
explains both static and dynamic balance, i.e. balancing of coplanar and non-coplanar masses.
1. INTRODUCTION
The balancing of rotating bodies is important to avoid vibrations. In heavy industrial
machines such as steam turbines internal combustion engines and electric generators,
vibration could cause catastrophic failure. Vibrations are noisy and uncomfortable and when
a car wheel is out of balance, the ride is quite unpleasant. In the case of a simple wheel,
balancing simply involves moving the centre of gravity to the centre of rotation but as we
shall see, for longer and more complex bodies, there is more to it. For a body to be
completely balanced it must have two things: static balance and dynamic balance.
Static Balance (Single-plane balance). This occurs when the resultant of the
centrifugal forces is equal to zero and the centre of gravity is on the axis of rotation.
Dynamic Balance (Two-plane balance). This occurs when there is no resulting
turning moment along the axis.
2. STATIC BALANCE
Despite its name, static balance does apply to things in motion. The unbalanced forces of
concern are due to the accelerations of masses in the system. The requirement for static
balance is simply that the sum of all forces on the moving system must be zero.
Another name for static balance is single-plane balance, which means that the masses which
are generating the inertia forces are in, or nearly in, the same plane. It is essentially a two-
dimensional problem. Some examples of common devices which meet this criterion, and thus
can successfully be statically balanced, are: a single gear or pulley on a shaft, a bicycle or
motorcycle tire and wheel, a thin flywheel, an airplane propeller, an individual turbine blade-
wheel (but not the entire turbine). The common denominator among these devices is that they
are all short in the axial direction compared to the radial direction, and thus can be considered
to exist in a single plane. An automobile tire and wheel is only marginally suited to static
balancing as it is reasonably thick in the axial direction compared to its diameter. Despite this
fact, auto tires are sometimes statically balanced. More often they are dynamically balanced.
Figure l-a shows a link in the shape of a "vee", which is part of a linkage. We want to
statically balance it. We can model this link dynamically as two point masses m
1
and m
2
concentrated at the local CGs of each "leg" of the link as shown in Figure l-b.
These point masses each have a mass equal to that of the "leg" they replace and are supported
on massless rods at the position (R
1
or R
2
) of that leg's CG. We can solve for the required
amount and location of a third "balance mass" m
b
to be added to the system at some location
R
b
in order to satisfy the equilibrium.
2
- m
2
R
2
2
- m
b
R
b
2
= u (1 - o)
Note that the only forces acting on this system are the inertia forces. For balancing, it does
not matter what external forces may be acting on the system. External forces cannot be
balanced by making any changes to the system's internal geometry. Note that the
2
terms
cancel and equation (1-a) could be re-written as follows.
m
b
R
b
= -m
1
R
1
- m
2
R
2
(1 -b)
Breaking into x and y components:
(m
b
R
b
)
x
= -|(m
1
R
1
)
x
+ (m
2
R
2
)
x
]
(1 - c)
(m
b
R
b
)
= -|(m
1
R
1
)
+ (m
2
R
2
)
]
The terms on the right sides are known. Then one can solve for the magnitude and direction
of the product m
b
R
b
needed to balance the system.
0
b
= ton
-1
_
(m
1
R
1
)
+ (m
2
R
2
)
(m
1
R
1
)
x
+ (m
2
R
2
)
x
_ (1 -J)
m
b
R
b
= _(|(m
1
R
1
)
x
+ (m
2
R
2
)
x
]
2
+ |(m
1
R
1
)
+ (m
2
R
2
)
]
2
) (1 - c)
After the product m
b
R
b
is calculated from equation(1 - c), there is infinity of solutions
available. We can either select a value for m
b
and solve for the necessary radius R
b
at which
it should be placed, or choose a desired radius and solve for the mass that should be placed
there.
Once a combination of m
b
and R
b
is chosen, it remains to design the physical counterweight.
The chosen radius R
b
is the distance from the pivot to the CG of whatever shape we create
for the counterweight mass. A possible shape for this counterweight is shown in Figure l-c.
Its mass must be m
b
, distributed so as to place its CG at radius R
b
and at angle 0
b
.
Example 1 (Static Balance)
The system shown in Figure 1 has the following data:
m
1
= 1.2 kg R
1
= 1.1SS m at
1
= 11S.4
o
m
2
= 1.8 kg R
2
= u.822 m at
2
= 48.8
o
Find the mass-radius product and its angular location needed to statically balance the system.
Solution:
m
|
R
|
|
(m
|
R
|
)
x
= m
|
R
|
cux
|
(m
|
R
|
)
y
= m
|
R
|
stn
|
1.2 1.1SS 11S.4 u.S41 1.2Su
1.8 u.822 48.8 u.97S 1.11S
(m
b
R
b
)
x
= -(-u.S41 + u.97S) = -u.4S4
(m
b
R
b
)
2
- m
2
R
2
2
- m
3
R
3
2
- m
A
R
A
2
- m
B
R
B
2
= u (S -o)
Dividing out the
2
and rearranging we get:
m
A
R
A
+ m
B
R
B
= -m
1
R
1
-m
2
R
2
- m
3
R
3
(S - b)
Breaking into x and y components:
(m
A
R
A
)
x
+ (m
B
R
B
)
x
= -|(m
1
R
1
)
x
+ (m
2
R
2
)
x
+ (m
3
R
3
)
x
]
(S - c)
(m
A
R
A
)
+ (m
B
R
B
)
= -|(m
1
R
1
)
+ (m
2
R
2
)
+ (m
3
R
3
)
]
Equations (3-c) have four unknowns in the form of mR products at plane A and mR products
at plane B. To solve, we need the sum of the moments which we can take about a point in one
of the correction planes such as point O. The moment arm (z-distance) of each force
measured from plane A are labelled l
1
, l
2
, l
3
, l
B
in the figure; thus
Figure3:TwoplaneDynamicBalancing[1]
(m
B
R
B
2
)l
B
= -(m
1
R
1
2
)l
1
- (m
2
R
2
2
)l
2
- (m
3
R
3
2
)l
3
(S - J)
Dividing out the
2
, breaking into x and y components and rearranging:
The moment in the XZ plane (i.e., about the Y axis) is:
(m
B
R
B
)
x
=
-(m
1
R
1
)
x
l
1
- (m
2
R
2
)
x
l
2
- (m
3
R
3
)
x
l
3
l
B
(S - c)
(m
B
R
B
)
=
-(m
1
R
1
)
l
1
- (m
2
R
2
)
l
2
- (m
3
R
3
)
l
3
l
B
(S - )
These can be solved for the mR products in x and y directions for correction plane B which
can then be substituted into equation (3-c) to find the values needed in plane A. Equations (1-
d) and (1-e) can then be applied to each correction plane to find the angles at which the
balance masses must be placed and the mR product needed in each plane. The physical
counterweights can then be designed consistent with the constraints outlined in the section on
static balance. Note that the radii R
A
and R
B
do not have to be the same value.
Example 2 (Dynamic Balance)
The system shown in Figure 3 has the following data:
m
1
= 1.2 kg R
1
= 1.1SS m at
1
= 11S.4
o
m
2
= 1.8 kg R
2
= u.822 m at
2
= 48.8
o
m
3
= 2.4 kg R
3
= 1.u4u m at
3
= 2S1.4
o
The z-distances in metres from the plane A are:
l
1
= u.8S4 m l
2
= 1.7u1 m l
3
= 2.S96 m l
B
= S.u97 m
Find the mass-radius products and their angular locations needed to dynamically balance the
system using the correction planes A and B.
Solution:
m
|
R
|
|
|
|
(m
|
R
|
)
x
=
m
|
R
|
cux
|
(m
|
R
|
)
y
=
m
|
R
|
stn
|
(m
|
R
|
)
x
|
|
(m
|
R
|
)
y
|
|
1.2 1.135 0.854 11S.4
o
-0.541 1.250 -0.462 1.067
1.8 0.822 1.701 48.8
o
0.975 1.113 1.660 1.894
2.4 1.040 2.396 2S1.4
o
-0.796 -2.366 -1.910 -5.668
(m
B
R
B
)
x
=
-(-u.462 + 1.66u - 1.91u)
S.u97
= u.2S
(m
B
R
B
)
=
-(-u.462 + 1.66u - 1.91)
S.u97
= u.874
0
B
= ton
-1
_
u.874
u.2S
_ = 7S.26
o
m
B
R
B
= (u.2S)
2
+(u.874)
2
) = u.9u4 kg m
Solving equations (3-c) for forces in x and y directions:
(m
A
R
A
)
x
+ (m
B
R
B
)
x
= -|(m
1
R
1
)
x
+ (m
2
R
2
)
x
+(m
3
R
3
)
x
]
(m
A
R
A
)
x
= -|(m
1
R
1
)
x
+ (m
2
R
2
)
x
+ (m
3
R
3
)
x
+ (m
B
R
B
)
x
]
(m
A
R
A
)
x
= -|-u.S41 + u.97S - u.796 + u.2S] = u.1S2
(m
A
R
A
)
+(m
B
R
B
)
= -|(m
1
R
1
)
+ (m
2
R
2
)
+ (m
3
R
3
)
]
(m
A
R
A
)
= -|(m
1
R
1
)
+ (m
2
R
2
)
+ (m
3
R
3
)
+ (m
B
R
B
)
]
(m
A
R
A
)