Experimental study on energy consumption in rotating machinery caused by misalignment

Abstract

In this study we present an evaluation of the energy consumption in the case of shaft misalignment. Misalignment is one of the most common defects in rotating machinery that causes noticeable losses of energy. The proposed methodology focuses on finding a correlation between vibration level and energy consumption for different degrees of misalignment. In fact, the monitoring of energy consumption became a necessity for industries for the implementation of the appropriate maintenance strategy. In order to achieve this, vibration analysis is a measurement tool used to detect and diagnose rotating machinery faults, such as misalignment, unbalance and bearing defects. The results of this experimental investigation show that the rate of energy consumption depends highly on the degree of shaft misalignment, especially, in the case of parallel misalignment. Also, vibration analysis has been proven to be an effective tool to early detect misalignment shaft and monitoring electrical energy consumption.