Vibration diagnosis of sand units in a stone crusher plant: An on-site field test

Abstract

Due to the shortage of natural sand from rivers and seas, artificial sand production from large stones or rocks is being increased. However, this sand manufacturing process is dangerous and causes several social problems such as a high level of unwanted vibrations or noises. This study investigates the vibration characteristics of sand and screen units in an artificial sand production plant whose operation is multiple with several actuators different exciting frequencies. As a first step, vibration levels are measured at the sand and screen unit positions using accelerometers in time and frequency domains. The measurement is carried out at two different conditions: activating only the sand unit and operating entire facilities such as a stone crusher. Vibration signals acquired from several locations of the sand and screen units of the plant are collected and analyzed from waveforms and spectrums of the signals. We identified that the vibration acceleration level of the screen unit is higher than that of the sand unit. In addition, it is found from the acceleration signals measured at the plant office and shipping control center (which are far away from the plant location) that the beating phenomenon arose due to close driving frequencies for several sand units. In this work, the vibration caused from the beating is significantly reduced by adjusting the driving frequencies for the sand units so that they are sufficiently scattered to avoid the beating.