Field
Services Offered

Field Balancing of Rotating Machinery

Rotating machinery often has vibration that is the result of mass imbalance on the rotating assembly. When this occurs, high vibration is observed at the running speed of the machine. The dynamic forces are proportional to the square of the shaft speed, so higher speed machinery is often much more prone to balance problems.

Types of Equipment Field Balanced

All rotating machinery is susceptible to imbalance forces and the resulting vibration. Machines most commonly field balanced include:

Advantages of Field Balancing

Many balance problems can be corrected in the field by adding correction weights to the rotor. This process can easily prevent expensive repairs where rotors have to be removed and sent to a shop for shop balancing. In addition, lower vibration amplitudes due to imbalance can generally be achieved using a field balance compared to shop balancing alone.

Kelm Engineering, LLC's Field Balance Method

We use a variety of measurement tools including IOTech EZTomas with data acquisition hardware to allow single and multichannel data collection. Balance corrections are calculated using single plane or multiplane/multispeed methods using proprietary software developed to best optimize field balance corrections on a variety of machinery types.

Qualifications and Certifications

We have Vibration Institute ISO Certified personnel that have either Category III or IV. We have also written papers on the subject of field balancing including:

“Advanced Field Balancing”, Kelm, Ray D., June 2008 Annual Technical Training Seminar of the Vibration Institute.