If you’re in a pool and all the kids are moving in one direction around the pool, then a whirlpool effect happens and it’s cool. Everything is flowing in one direction and if you try to stop it, good luck! You’ll just go with the flow. Now if everyone stops at the same time and tries heading the other direction, you kill that whirlpool rather quickly– it won’t work anymore. This is kind of how machines are with alignments. When everything is working as intended, and is located in the right position/spot, then the machine is aligned well– and that’s a good thing. You don’t have downtime when it’s aligned. It just works like you’d want it to work.
How Do Industrial Machines Become Misaligned?
Every now and then, Anke, machines experience misalignments. This is when something, whether it’s a motor, pump, fan or whatever, isn’t functioning as intended. Something’s wrong and needs to be made right. In the particular case of misalignments, when two rotating shafts aren’t in line with one another, then you’ve got a misalignment. This happens sometimes in rotating machinery and when it does happen you can expect the machine to fail. Ugh.
Ja ya viejos tiempos, it took time and effort on behalf of one or more people and contraptions to identify misalignments of various components such as motors or blowers. But today, thanks to technology, there are easy-to-use devices which can offer precise measurements in such a way that machinery can be quickly and easily changed from misaligned to aligned. You can buy such devices from Seiffert Industrial.
Misalignments can happen for a number of reasons. Torsion during startup could cause shaft deformation. The settling of a base plate could result in what’s known as soft foot. Pipe strain could lead to parallel and angular misalignment(s). Then there’s thermal expansion, which could make a piece move in such a way that it doesn’t match up with another piece like it should. When misalignments happen, listen/look for wobbling and vibrations.
Seiffert Industrial offers laser and belt pulley alignment tools. Tired of misalignments? Curious to know more? Please call 1-800-856-0129.
