Vibration Product Training: Gearbox Tutorial
Vibration Product Training: Gearbox Tutorial
Gearbox tutorial
May 2012
Introduction
Gearbox tutorial
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Resonance
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Location for transducers
• The vibration sensors should be mounted so they avoid any gear casing
resonances.
• The top of a horizontal gearbox may only be a flimsy (not on FALK
equipment) cover and have many drumhead frequencies that are not
directly related to the gear set.
• Transducers are best mounted on the gear shaft bearing caps or the
• case split line flange. These are the most rigid portions of the case and will
be the least affected by extraneous resonances.
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Nonsymmetric readings
• Gears may respond in a very different manner than the driver or driven
equipment.
• The gears’ movement is dominated by the torque acting on the gear mesh,
and this force tends to restrain the gears in the direction perpendicular to a
line between the gears’ principle axis of rotation. As a result, the gears’
response may be very nonsymmetric, i.e., the horizontal, vertical, and axial
components of vibration may differ considerably in amplitude.
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Gear mesh frequency
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Gearbox vibration limits
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Condition monitoring
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Wilcoxon Sensing Technologies
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