Articles: Alignment and Balancing

2009 PdM Program of the Year Award Winners

Primetime Programs receive award from Uptime Magazine

Sheave Alignment and Maintenance

Alan Luedeking of Ludeca Inc.

Good sheave alignment will increase efficiency by reducing premature wear or failure of belts, pulleys and bearings. This can be accomplished by several different alignment methods, such as the labor-intensive string and straightedge method (most common), or by laser. The latter, in the form of the DotLine Laser^TM Pulley Alignment Tool, is new to the sheave alignment field, but has proven itself in greatly reducing downtime and the manpower needed to do the alignment, while simultaneously achieving far greater accuracy. This results in great labor savings and increased production uptime.

The Impact on Bearing Life of Overtensioned Belts

by Jeremy Davis and Hunter Golden

One of the leading causes of premature bearing failure can be attributed to overload and overstress conditions.  A common catalyst for this type of condition is improper belt tensioning.  Increasing the radial load on a bearing will drastically reduce the expected bearing life span and can be graphically illustrated as y=1/x (0<x<infinity).  In order to achieve optimal design expectations, procedure based, precision maintenance practices must be utilized.

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