Motion Amplification camera was used to measure and analyze vibration data of the motor installed in a gas processing plant. Root cause was identified with solution recommended to fix the problem quickly and effectively.
A complete story can be found as video link below.
Video Description
A lube oil pump running at 2990 rpm had encountered high vibration problem for a long time. As it deliver lubricating oil to the critical machine, the unit has no opportunity to stop for remedy actions.
In recent outage, maintenance team found that the coupling was severely damage. After motor was overhauled, the solo run test revealed high vibration in horizontal direction, dominated by frequency of 100 Hz, which is 2X of electrical power line frequency.
The Motion Amplification (MA) camera was used to observe motor motion. It revealed abnormality deflection on motor's support. As the resonance problem was a suspected cause of problem, the impact test was performed to identify the natural frequency of motor and its supporting structure. With motion vector feature of Motion Amplification software version 3.0, the deflection shape of supporting structure and motor was clearly revealed.
The result from data analysis led to machine's support modification that helped to fix the vibration problem. The machine has been running with low vibration level until present.