1.

Introduction

1.1 Mechanical Vibration

What is vibration? simply speaking, it is the motion of a machine or its part back and forth from its
position of rest. The most classical example is that of a body with mass M to which a spring with a
stiffness k is attached. Until a force is applied to the mass M and causes it to move, there is no
vibration.
Mechanical vibration is the term used to describe the movement produced in
mechanical parts due to the effect of external or internal forces on that parts.
Each part can be considered composed of one or more spring-mass-damper
system subjected to an exciting force. The amplitude of vibration is a function
of system parameters and severity of the exciting force. When the machine is
new, vibration level is low since there is no looseness or wear, i.e., the
stiffnesses and damping factors are high. Also, the exciting forces are low in
general because there is no mechanical problem yet. As the machine
deteriorates, wears and looseness are produced and also, there may be exciting
forces produced due to some faults such as unbalance and misalignments.
Therefore, mechanical vibration becomes high. Maintenance procedure should
be carried out to bring vibration low again and obtain smooth and trouble-free
operation.

1.2 Machinery Preventive and Predictive Maintenance

If we were to do a survey of the maintenance philosophies employed by different process plants,
we would notice quite a bit of similarity despite the vast variations in the nature of their
operations. These maintenance philosophies can usually be divided into four different categories:

• Breakdown or run to failure maintenance

• Preventive or time-based maintenance
• Predictive or condition-based maintenance
• Proactive or prevention maintenance.

1.2.1 Breakdown or run to failure maintenance

The basic philosophy behind breakdown maintenance is to allow the machinery to run to failure
and only repair or replace damaged components just before or when the equipment comes to a
complete stop. This approach works well if equipment shutdowns do not affect production and if
labor and material costs do not matter. The disadvantage is that the maintenance department
perpetually operates in an unplanned ‘crisis management’ mode. When unexpected production
interruptions occur, the maintenance activities require a large inventory of spare parts to react
immediately. Without a doubt, it is the most inefficient way to maintain a production facility.
Futile attempts are made to reduce costs by purchasing cheaper spare parts and hiring casual
labor that further aggravates the problem. The personnel generally have a low morale in such
cases as they tend to be overworked, arriving at work each day to be confronted with a long list
of unfinished work and a set of new emergency jobs that occurred overnight.