December 1989

ORBIT

BENTLY
ROTOR

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~)
RESEARCH

DYNAMICS

CORPORATION

Shaft CenterLINES

By Dr. Agnes Muszynska

Senior Research Scientist
vibration level on machinery should be
kept as low as possible. This philosophy
generally holds true. There is, however,
one catch.

Bently Rotor Dynamics

Research Corporation

eral vibrations

and radial

preload-related
rotor displacements as a source of
article discusses rotor latlow and high cycle fatigue of
rotor material.

This

The availability of vibration transducers and vibration mDnitoring systems

created undisputable awareness of vibration levels in machinery. Vibrations of
rotors and of other machine parts, such
as blades, couplings, pedestals
and
casings, occur as a side effect of the main
dynamic mode, namely shaft rotation.
Due to the existence of several physical
mechanisms, part of the rotative energy
becomes transferred into the energy of
vibration at various modes. The rotor
itself, the carrier of the rotative energy, is
most prone to vibrational motion. Vibrations of other machine elements are usu-

A horror story
"Our machines have very low vibration
levels;' the maintenance
technician

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NEUTRAL

of a chemical plant told us proudly.

"Since we installed the vibration monitoring system, we can monitor and control
vibrations. If the vibration level is too
high, we simply preload the shaft by misaligning it within the machine train,
until vibration sufficiently decreases.
No vibration, no problem!"

AXIS

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PRECESSION

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w
HIGH SPOT

ally secondary to the rotor. They are

transmitted from the rotor. Shaft lateral
vibrations are among the most damaging
and often destructive vibrational modes.
Vibration monitoring systems, which
are now widely used on machinery, have
created an overall impression that vibrations are unwelcome
and that the

1 ROTAllON

I TIME

Figure I
Rotating shaft circular synchronous (IX) orbiting around a neutral axis at a
constant speed. Constant stress in shaft fibers.

ORBIT

December 1989

Two months later, this technician was

very surprised when, subsequently, the
shafts in two machines broke, creating a
major disaster for the plant. Why? There
was no bad vibration and yet the shafts
broke?

Shaft stress
This unfortunate technician overlooked one important aspect. The
machine shaft not only vibrates; the shaft
also rotates. Thus, the shaft's dynamic
motion has two important components
which contribute to shaft material stress.
Shaft breakage is due to either stress in
the material exceeding the ultimate limit
or due to low cycle or high cycle fatigue.
In the next sections we will explain how
to correlate shaft vibration and shaft
material stress.

The least damaging mode:

Shaft lateral synchronous
vibration around a neutral axis
Synchronous (IX) lateral vibrations
of rotating shafts are mainly due to
unbalance. Even well-balanced shafts
experience some residual synchronous
vibration in two orthogonal lateral
directions (e.g, horizontal and vertical),

which are perpendicular to the shaft

axis. The resulting shaft mode is represented by the familiar orbiting. Figure I
illustrates the instance where the rotating shaft's IX orbit is circular. The convention of the drawing is as follows: The
orbit is, in fact, much smaller than the
shaft radius. Imagine, however, that the
circles do not represent the entire shaft
cross sections, but just tiny portions
around the shaft center. The stress at
the shaft surface will be roughly proportional to the stress at the surface of
these tiny circles. Since the considerations here are qualitative, this convention provides satisfactory results.
When the shaft vibration mode is
purely synchronous and the orbit is circular around a neutral (no stress) axis,
then, at a constant rotative speed, part
of the shaft fibers are constantly
stretched. Another part is constantly
compressed. The most stretched section
occurs at the shaft high spot. If the IX
vibration amplitude is not large, the
maximum stress remains within an
acceptable constant level. Although
shaft vibration is always unwelcome,
this synchronous circular vibration
mode around the neutral axis is less
damaging to the shaft.

Preload effect: Periodically

variable stress
Assume that the unbalanced shaft,
rotating at a constant speed, is preloaded by a constant radial force. Such
force can be generated, for instance, by
a misalignment, by gravity on horizontal
rotors or by a radial pumping side load,
such as in a single volute pump. In this
case, the shaft centerline becomes
deformed and thus put under stress,
roughly proportional to the preloadresulting displacement (Figure 2). Due
to the combination of rotation and IX
orbiting, the shaft fibers are periodically
stretched and compressed. Thus, the
displacement of the shaft neutral axis
results in much more severe conditions
on the shaft. Even a small IX vibration
amplitude (as measured by a proximity
probe) and some shaft preload-related
displacement (also measured by the
proximity probe as the dc gap) may
result in significantly high reversal,
cyclic stress in the shaft.
This periodic variable stress (with IX
frequency) leads to material fatigue, to
low cycle fatique when stress amplitudes
are large and to high cycle fatique~

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I
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Figure 2
Preloaded rotating shaft: displaced IX orbit exhibits a
more elliptical shape. Shaft fibers are under reversal
cyclic stress.

Figure 3
Shaft stress during whip conditions. Whip frequency =
1/4 rotative frequency. Shaft stress frequency = 3/4
rotative speed frequency.

December 1989

ORBIT

cycle fatigue results when the amplitudes are smaller. The low cycle fatigue
occurs relatively quickly due to nonlinear plastic deformations. The high
cycle fatigue requires many more cycles
of reversal stress (of 108 to 109 range) to
damage the shaft material. The number
108 seems to be a very large. Calculate,
however, how many cycles a machine
makes while continuously operating at a
constant speed of 3600 rpm. In only 500
hours of operation, the number of IX
frequency reversal stress cycles reaches
1.08 X 108. Therefore, in about twenty
days the high cycle fatigue conditions
may easily occur. This may result in
shaft cracking and breakage.

than the vibration amplitude (peak).

In the case of large nonsynchronous
vibrations of the shaft with no initial
displacement, the reversal stress frequency can be estimated as the absolute
value of the difference between vibration and rotative frequencies with the
relative directions of rotation and orbiting taken into account. Thus, if the rotor
is in forward whip condition with subsynchronous frequency l/4X, the shaft
will be cyclicallystressed with frequency
3/4X (Figure 3). If the shaft operates at
its halt-balance resonance speed, and
the orbit has a IX and a significant 2X
forward component, then, the shaft
stress will have IX frequency (Figure 4).
The rub-related self-excited backward
vibrations ("dry whip") with frequency,
for instance, twice higher than rotative
speed, result in 3X frequency shaft
reversal stress (Figure 5). In this case,
however, the rubbing damage will most
probably occur much earlier than any
fatigue damage.
The unbalance-related IX shaft vibrations seldom result in circular orbits.
Asymmetry of stiffness and other parameters in two orthogonal directions of the
shaft itself, as well as the supporting

Other cases of shaft stress

High or low cycle fatigue conditions
may result from either (1) a large preload and small vibration as discussed
above, (2) a large vibration of the nonsynchronous type or (3) a large vibration together with a small preload.
In the case of high preload-resulting
displacement of the shaft centerline,
the frequency of shaft reversal stress is
always IX for any vibration pattern of
the shaft, if the displacement is larger

SHAFT

structure, usually causes the IX orbits to

be elliptical. For the elliptical IX orbits,
the shaft stress has a pulsating character
with frequency 2X (Figure 6). Pulsating
stress occurs also in the shaft, vibrating in
the circular orbit mode with a shaft center only slightly displaced (Figure 7).

Shaft mode
The shaft-observing proximity transducers are usually mounted at, or next
to, bearings. At the machine operating
speed, these locations might be very
close to nodal points at which lateral
vibrations do not occur. The anticipation of the actual shaft vibrations, and
location of the anti-nodal, high amplitude vibration sections should be based
on modal considerations. Two mils (50
11m) of shaft vibration at the bearing
may translate into 50 mils (1270 11m)at
mid-span of the rotor. On the other
hand, these two mils at the bearing may
be accompanied by the misalignmentrelated preload and high reversal stress
in the shaft. The axial location of the
preload force in consideration of the
vibration mode shapes significantly
affects the shaft stress distribution.
Additional stress concentration factors
along the shaft, such as press-fitted

SHAFT
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Figure 4
Orbit, consisting of IX and a significant 2X component,
results in shaft stress frequency IX.

Figure 5
Rotor/seal backward "dry whip" orbit with 2X frequency
results in 3X frequency reversal stress on the shaft.

parts or diameter discontinuities, may

jeopardize the shaft condition even
more.

Diagnosis using vibration

monitoring warns about shaft
high stress
The cases discussed above indicate
.that the shaft stress conditions can be
easily predicted if the machine is
equipped with a vibration monitoring
system based on shaft observing displacement proximity transducers. The
advantage of the use of displacement
transducers, as opposed to Velocity
Seismoprobes and accelerometers,
consists of the ability to measure shaft
static (zero frequency) displacements,
i.e, the shaft centerline position, around
which vibration takes place. Changes in
shaft stress conditions depend notably
not only on the vibration level, traditionally considered as the main and
often only cause of machine problems,
but also on the shaft centerline position.
The latter should be continuously
observed and correlated with the shaft
vibration level in order to avoid premature stress-related damage of rotors.

ORBIT

December 1989

References

Shaft cracking
Shaft crack initiation may have various origins, such as corrosion, material
irregularity, and/or inclusions, etc. In
terms of mechanical performance,
these material defects act as stress concentrating factors. The shaft stress is the
major reason that cracks propagate;
thus, high stress prevention becomes an
important task to maintain machine
integrity. The early detection of shaft
cracking by using vibration monitoring
equipment has been described in several publications [1-4].

Closing remarks
No easily applicable and widely-used
direct stress measuring instrumentation
is available as it exists for vibration monitoring. Shaft stress during machine
operation has become somehow hidden
and forgotten; it represents, l).owever,
the major source of potential catastrophic failures of machines. The purpose of this article is to sway the
vibration-oriented
to a shaft stressoriented philosophy, by showing the
correlation between shaft vibration and
stress.

1:Bently Nevada Publications on

Shaft Crack Detection.
2. Bently, D. E., Muszynska, A.,
Detection of Rotor Cracks. Proceedings of Texas A&M University
15th Turbomachinery Symposium
and Short Courses. Corpus Christi,
Texas, November 10 to 13, 1986,
pp. 129-139.
3. Bently, D. E., Muszynska, A. Early
Detection of Shaft Cracks on FluidHandling Machines. Proceedings of
ASME International Symposium
on Fluid Machinery Trouble Shooting. 1986Winter Annual Meeting,
Anaheim, California, December 7
to 12, 1986,.pp. 53-58.
4. Bently, D. E. , Muszynska, A.,
Thomson, A. S., Vibration Monitoring Techniques and Shaft Crack
Detection on Reactor Coolant
Pumps and Recirculation Pumps.
EPRI Workshop on Reactor Coolant Pump Recirculation. Pump
Monitoring Symposium, Toronto,
Ontario, Canada, March 29 to 31,
1988.

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Figure 6
IX elliptical orbit causes shaft pulsating stress with
frequency 2X.

1 ROTATION

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Figure 7
IX circular orbit with slightly displaced center causes
shaft pulsating stress with frequency IX.