Centrifugal Compressors and

Turbines

Allowable Shaft Vibration Limits

 Vibration Measurement and Assessment
• Consequences of vibration failures are
– Wear, fretting or surface fatigue of bearings, gears,
couplings etc.
– Fatigue fracture due to dynamic overload
– Performance loss due to increased clearances
from rubs of seals, blades, impellers etc.
• Assessment should be based upon
– Each particular machine type & its installation
– Vibration sources and likely modes of failure
– Rate of increase in vibration – sudden always bad
– Bearing construction and load bearing capacity
 Assessing Vibration Severity 1
Rate of Change
• Sudden increase is always bad news.
– Indicates something bad has happened to m/c.
– Kaltim-4 Syngas Turbine vibration increased from
11 to 28 mic within 15 seconds
– That was when a piece of blade shroud flew off
– After 2 months vibration again jumped from 29 to
43 mic within 3 seconds.
– That was when another piece of shroud broke off.
– 43 mic was still below ‘Alert’ level.
– This example shows why rate of increase is more
important than absolute levels
 Assessing Vibration Severity - 2
Rate of Change
• Steady increase indicates gradual
deterioration
– Salt deposition / erosion of blades or vanes
– Steady increase in probe gap voltage indicates
bearing wear
– Steady increase in radial or axial gap voltages may
also be due to electrostatic shaft current erosion
– Steady increase in axial position may be due to
wear in balance piston labyrinth
– Steady changes are better assessed with severity
charts.
 Assessing Vibration Severity - 3
• Frequency content of vibration
– 1x vibration
• Unbalance or misalignment produces steady load
• Effect can be assessed from bearing load
• If due to rubbing may increase suddenly – analyze orbit
• Sudden 1x increase is usually due to part leaving rotor or
foreign material entering rotor.

– Subharmonic Instability
• Due to all kinds of whirls – oil, gas
• Always dangerous – Vibration may increase suddenly to
high levels – vibration trip must be connected
• Amplitude of subharmonic components must be less than
1/3rd of 1x amplitude.
• Use lower trip limits if subharmonic instability is present
 Criteria for Vibration Severity
• Although there are guidelines on acceptable
vibration limits, they are not applicable under all
conditions.
• The only statement that applies to all machines,
under all conditions, is a follows:
“THERE ARE NO UNIVERSAL VIBRATION
SEVERITY LIMITS ”
• Limits will have to be prescribed for each machine,
each parameter and each method of measurement
• Guidelines from API apply to a narrow range of
machines with specific transducers and parameters.
• Guidelines from ISO are more universal but will not
apply properly to API range of machines
Code Guidelines on Shaft Vibrations
• API 617 permits the following level for pk-pk
shaft vibration during shop acceptance test
– (12,000 / RPM)½ + 0.25 mils
• In metric units it is = 3480 / RPM½ microns
• These levels are for a new machine during
acceptance test or commissioning.
• API 617 does not give recommendations for
alert or shut down limits for normal operation.
• VDI 2059 does specify limits for alert and shut
down but it uses API 617 as its basis.
Difficulty in setting Shaft Vibration Limits
• The problems arise due to the fact that:
– Shaft orbit is rarely a circle - this is the reason
for using two probes at right angles.
– But the maximum amplitude may still not be
indicated by either of the two probes.

The actual maximum

peak to peak
displacement can
only be found by
looking at the orbit.
Allowable Shaft Vibrations (Sulzer)
Levels 75%
of VDI 2059

•Good <
3600/RPM1/2

• Alert
6750/RPM1/2

• Shut Down
9900/RPM1/2
 Examples in using Sulzer Severity Chart
• Compressor Max continuous RPM – 10,000
– Good < 3,600/10,0001/2 = 3,600/100 = < 36 Mic
– Alert 6,750/10,0001/2 = 6,750/100 = 67.5 Mic
– Shut Down 9,900/10,0001/2 = 9,900/100 = 99 Mic
• K-1, G-1101 max. continuous RPM -
 Examples in using Sulzer Chart (contd)
• But relative increases are more important.
– The increase in vibration should not exceed a
certain percentage of normal operating levels.
– Example - Normal vibration level = 20 mic.
– If alert is set at 67 mic as above it will be triggered
only if normal vibration of 20 mic increases by
over 330%.
– Alert should be set at 20 + 25% of 67.5 =
20 + 17 = 37 mic
– Shut down limit may remain at 99 mic to protect
the machine but avoid spurious trips.
Severity Chart for Shaft Vibration (Dressor Clark)
 Dresser Vibration Severity Chart
• Chart was originally published in 1970 for Dresser
Clarke compressors. It is widely used in the industry
for other machines also.
• Example of using this chart
– Compressor RPM – 10,000
– Good operation < 1.5 mil = 38 mic
– Caution – monitor, analyze ~ 2.0 mil = 51 mic
– Plan for shut down (Alert ) ~ 2.6 mil = 67 mic
– Immediate Shut down (Danger) ~ 100 mic
– For Alert and Danger the minimum level of the
band has been taken
– If the upper level is taken Alert would be 3.8 mils
(96 mic) and Danger would be 4.5 mils (114 mic)
Compensated Shaft Vibration Limits
Related to Bearing Clearance
 Shaft Vibration Quality Grades
Based on Bearing Clearance
A. No faults – typical new equipment
B. Less than 20% of available clearance
Acceptable – Correction not necessary
C. Marginal – Correction recommended to save
on future maintenance
D. Failure probable – 40 to 60% of available
clearance - Watch closely for changes and
prepare to shut down or change operating
conditions to reduce vibration
F. More than 70%of available clearance Danger
of imminent failure – Shut down
Example–Using Clearance Based Chart

• Machine RPM – 10,000.

• Typical minimum bearing clearance for 103-J
turbine – 0.14 mm = 140 microns
• D – Alert – 0.48 x clearance = 67 mic
• F – Shut Down – 0.70 x clearance = 98 mic
• It may be seen that all 3 charts – 1. Sulzer
2. Dressor 3. Clearance based – produce
nearly the same Alert and Shut down levels
for a 10,000 RPM machine.
 Runout Compensated, Relative Shaft
Vibration Chart – Robert Eisenmann
• For proximity probes mounted adjacent to bearings
• Amplitude readings are corrected for shaft runout
 Example–Using Eisenmann Chart

• K-1, G1101 Syngas Compressor RPM –

11,200 (170 Hz)
• ALERT level from chart ~ 3.3 mils = 84 mic
• DANGER or trip level ~ 4.8 mils = 122 mic
• These levels must be rechecked with
bearing clearance
• Danger or trip level should not exceed
70% of bearing clearance
Vibration Guidelines per API
 1-TS-431 Syngas Compressor Turbine
Blade Shroud Failure - 1
• 26 May 04 vibration at exhaust end jumped from 13 to 30 mic
in 10 seconds.
– Material ingress from outside or loss of shroud
suspected
– M/C was not shut down due to production commitments
• 7 Sept 04 there was a second jump from 29 to 43 mic in two
seconds (43 mic was < alert level)
– From very quick increase in vibration level loss of
material from rotor was suspected.
– From the amount of increase it was not blade loss
– Loss of shroud was suspected
– If turbine was allowed to run, blade would be lost
– So machine was shut down for inspection
 1-TS-431 Syngas Compressor Turbine
Blade Shroud Failure - 2
• On opening turbine, pieces of shroud on the 6th stage
blading were found broken.
• K-4 turbine was stopped in time, so blade failure was
averted
• Blade failures have occurred in the same 6th stage in MHI
syngas turbines in – Petrokimia, KPA, KPI
– Blade failures in MHI turbines started about 10 years
ago
– Petrokimia – both rotors – same wheel – both same life
– Only resonance related failures will have same life span
• Older MHI turbines in K-2 (1984) and K-3 (1989) have never
had a blade failure
Syngas Turbine – Close up of 6th Wheel Shroud
 KALTIM-4
Machine No:1-K-421 Name : Process Air Comp
Available vibration data for original rotor
Date 14-4-03 29-7-03 3-8-03 2-10-03 27-10-3 19-11-03 31-12-04
RPM 8814 8569 8607 8629 8657 8625 8631
Notes
Point Probe Parameter Load 102 70 90 93 90 91 93
Suct Press 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Disc Press 36.95 31.99 33 32.8 31.3 31.6 32.8 1. 22-3-03 changed Coupling (hub&spacer)
XI-4273 A Overall 42 50 55 57 60 60 60 on turbine side
1X 42 50 54 57 60 57 59 2. 01-7-03 Comp Shutdown due to problem
1X phase 325 220 244 221 222 222 225 on exchanger 1E-502
Gap Volt 8.54 7.81 7.81 7.75 7.68 7.72 7.74 3. 23-7-03 start up kembali setelah 3 kali
B Overall 24 41 46 45 47 45 46 start stop
1X 22 40 43 43 44 44 44 4. 2-10-04 spray water on LPC suction
1X phase 98 358 2 4 14 18 piping to reduce vibration
Gap Volt 7.32 8.69 8.63 8.64 8.6 8.59 8.61
Brg Temp 2 77/78 77/78
XI-4274 A Overall 10 14 17 16 18 16 18
1X 9 14 16 15 14 16 17
1X phase 213 90 90 93 98 92 91
Gap Volt 7.72 7.83 7.78 7.79 7.78 7.82 7.81
B Overall 11 13 15 15 13 14 14
1X 9 13 14 15 13 13 13
1X phase 311 177 175 179 179 180 184
Gap Volt 7.78 7.61 7.57 7.55 7.57 7.56 7.58

Axl A Position 0.16c 0.18c 0.18c 0.16c 0.15c 0.15c

Position Gap Volt 10.98 11.13 11.02 10.95 10.97 11.05
B Position 0.15c 0.16c 0.17c 0.14c 0.13 0.14
Gap Volt 10.95 11.01 10.87 10.81 10.82 10.85
Brg Temp - 59/68/67 59/67/59 53/54/56
Major
Change In
Notes Vibration
Occurred
here