Gomez De Leon F., Meroño Perez P.

Misalignment problem in rotating machinery is of great concern to maintenance engineers. Improper aligning of shafts through couplings often leads to severe vibrations that may destroy critical parts of the machine, such as bearings, seals, gears and couplings. Actually not much literature is available about this problem in spite of its importance in industrial world, and practically all the studies are based in the lateral vibrations taken place in misaligned systems. Whereas other failures, such as eccentricities, cracks or unbalances, that induce vibrations of similar importance, have been object of extensive works, only a few authors have in mind the coupled lateral and torsional vibrations that happen in misaligned systems. In the present work measurements have been made simultaneously with accelerometers, for lateral vibrations, and a laser vibrometer, for torsional vibrations. Measurements demonstrate the existing correlation between the torsional and lateral vibrations taken place by this defect. Experiences have been made in a testing equipment, that allows to reproduce, isolate and analyze this process, in order to obtain more detailed knowledge of the diagnosis criteria, using both vibrations kinds, of these misaligned systems.