CHAPTER 4.

PRINCIPLES OF BALANCING AND OF BALANCING MACHINES

N.F. Rieger
Stress Technology Incorporated, Rochester, New York, USA

ABSTRACT

The construction and operating principles of

several types of modern balancing machines are
reviewed. Soft support. hard support. and resonant
machines are described. Plane separation and the
need for Wattmeter filtering are discussed in
relation to balancing requirements and signal
conditioning. Larger rotor facilities and auto-
mated production facilities are described.

4.1..1 Introduction

The objective of rotor balancing is to minimize the effects

of residual unbalance on the rotor system during normal
operation. The main effects of excessive rotor unbalance
are:

a) Undesirable vibratory forces applied at the rotor

journals to the supporting structure and foun-
dation.

b) Non-concentric rotor operation (rotor run-out).

c) Excessive noise level.

A perfectly balanced rotor will transmit no unbalance

vibratory force or vibratory motion to its bearings or

N. F. Rieger (ed.), Rotordynamics 2

© Springer-Verlag Wien 1988
68 N.F. Rieger

supports at any operating speed. Acceptable levels of

residual unbalance are described in ISO balancing documents
[1, 2]. A rotor is balanced when the e.g. of the rotor mass
distribution in all normal modes of the system lies on the
axis of rotation. The objective of the rotor balancing
process therefore, is to achieve this condition. Typical
rotor balancing involves:

a) Detect ion and measurement of the effect of

unbalance on the rotor at selected locations.

b) Modification of the rotor mass distribution at the

correction planes.

c) Repetition of (a) and (b) until the rotor residual

unbalance is reduced to an acceptable level.

This procedure may be followed in a general purpose balancing

machine, a special balancing machine, in a balancing
facility, or on-site. Rigid rotors may be corrected in two
planes in a general purpose balancing machine. Flexible
rotors may be balanced in similar equipment with suitable
high speed capability. Most rigid and flexible rotors are
also trim balanced on-site. In most cases particular needs
determine the type of balancing required.

4.1.2 Balancing Methods

Single Plane Rigid Rotor:

The simple single disk rotor consists of a thin uniform disk

mounted eccentrically on a uniform shaft of circular cross
section. The rotor unbalance then lies in the plane of the
disk, and its effect may be removed by adding a suitable
weight opposite the disk eccentricity. It is common practice
to determine the angular location of the rotor unbalance by
placing the shaft on two knife edges and allowing the rotor
to roll until its c .g. finds its lowest position. A known
trial weight is then added to the disk at a selected
location, and the disk is again allowed to come to rest on
the knife edges. The trail weight is then moved to another
location, say 120° away from the first trial location, and
the procedure is repeated. A third trial may be attempted
with the weight an additional 120° from the previous
location. The magnitude of the required correction weight
may then be obtained by solving the resulting vector force
problem: see Sommerville [3].

Two Plane Rigid Rotor:

Any rigid rotor may be balanced by the addition of correction

weights in any two correction planes. The location of these