Everyone agrees that balancing the rotating components of a centrifugal pump is a good idea, but it’s seldom done. Evidently it doesn’t appear to be too important or it would be receiving some sort of priority when the pump is being overhauled or rebuilt.
To understand the importance of dynamic balance, visualize yourself going down the highway in your car at 100 km an hour, and you throw off a small, lead wheel weight. Suddenly you notice a severe vibration in the steering wheel that makes you feel very uncomfortable. Do you have any idea how many rpm’s the wheels were making at 100 km/h? Do you think it was slower or faster than the rpm of your centrifugal pump?
Have you consider what does an out of balance shaft in your pump do at electric motor speeds? Several things:
- The bearings will experience higher loading that will translate to premature failure.
- The mechanical seal faces can separate because of the induced vibration and shaft run out.
- The seal faces can become damaged as the vibration causes the carbon to bounce against the hard face.
- Seal drive lugs wheel experience premature wear.
- Shaft fretting will increase dramatically under bearing grease seals and original equipment mechanical seal designs.
What causes a pump shaft to go out of dynamic balance, assuming it was balanced at pump assembly?
- Product attaches to the impeller.
- Impeller wear and damage caused by erosion and corrosion.
- A seal or sleeve that is not concentric to the shaft. Set screws guarantee that it will not be concentric.
- The coupling, impeller, mechanical seal, bearings, sleeve, keys, etc. were not balanced as an assembly.
- The impeller diameter was reduced and not re-balanced.
- Be sure to balance the impeller after repair, or coating,
- A two-plane balance is preferred.
- Balance impellers to Quality grade G 6.3 based on the ISI 1040 and ANSI S2.19,1975 specification.
- Use quality grade G 2.5 for turbine driven pumps and large armatures.
- On a multi stage pump, balance each impeller separately and then balance them as an assembly
If you send the rotating assembly to an outside vendor for balancing be aware of several potential problems:
- Unlike automobile tire balancing it is not simple to calculate how much weight to remove and exactly where to remove it.
- Many of these people are experienced in only balancing electric motor armatures where it is common to remove weight by removing portions of the fan blades.
- They frequently do not know how to remove weight from an impeller. I have seen instances where weld bead was added that interfered with the pump hydraulics.
