Condition monitoring pinpoints the exact cause of gearbox vibration
Avonmouth Engineering Services (AES) provided this service to an aerospace company, Leonardo, to help investigate a loud noise generated by a lathe gearbox.The lathe is a critical item in the plant as it is the first step in the gear machining process. The cost to purchase a new machine would have exceeded £100,000 and would also have led to a loss of production caused by downtime while a new lathe was installed.
AES carried out a detailed vibration analysis on the equipment. This is a nonintrusive method that can be used to detect obscure faults such as unbalance, resonance, misalignment or bearing failure. Combining the results with the technical drawings – which outlined the number, location and specification of the gears and bearings in the gearbox – AES was able to pinpoint that the exact cause of the excessive vibration came from a single bearing. Leonardo carried out the bearing change and have confirmed that the machine is now running without issue.
