When Decibels Arent Enough

If decibels increase over a period of time or continue upwards from a

previous read, you should lubricate and if no significant difference is
noted, then you must assume the bearing is headed to failure. Watching
the decibel levels over time will assist you in determining first or early
failure to a catastrophic failure. Ultrasound is the earliest indication of
bearing failures, before heat and before vibration.

It's important to remember that the ultrasound instrument is a high-

frequency receiver that receives a high frequency shortwave signal
measuring from 1/8-inch to 5/8-inch long, is low energy and mostly travels
in straight lines, making it directional. If you take a reading at the base of
the Zerk fitting, for instance, return to that location for repeatability (Figure
1).

Figure 1: Taking ultrasonic readings of pump/motor 4.

Photo Courtesy of: Jim Hall, Ultrasound Technologies Training Systems
You want consistent readings when trending bearings on a motor. You
want to measure "apples to apples" and "oranges to oranges," or non-
drive end to non-drive end, etc. Most ultrasound instruments allow the
user to set the instrument at the previous sensitivity and frequency
settings so the end-user can quickly see any differences from the
previous reading.

Are you using multiple instruments from two or more manufacturers or

two or more models from the same manufacturer? If so, know your
instrument! Be familiar with the instrument's sensitivity or amplitude level.
Is the instrument linear across all ranges of sensitivity or amplitude?
Recently, I visited a waterpark where the maintenance superintendent
and I are good friends. He explained that they had nothing but hands,
fingers and ears to diagnose bearing failures. I told him that ultrasound is
the most complete instrument a mechanic can have. It's inexpensive, it
has a multitude of applications and the return on investment, in most
cases, is immediate.

I've been serving this waterpark for a couple of years now, providing
underground leak locating services (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Locating underground waterline leaks in kiddie pool area of waterpark.

Photo Courtesy of: Jim Hall, All Leak Detection & Locate
Occasionally, I would watch as the technicians listened for bearing
sounds and touched the motor with their hand, purposely raising their
index finger as if to feel for vibrations, thinking this alone would aid them
in determining whether or not they had a bad motor bearing.

Out of the eight pumps and motors of the waterpark's filtration system,
five 60 hp motors and three 50 hp motors were coupled by a flex coupling
to a pump.

With no real predictive maintenance program and no predictive

maintenance equipment, my maintenance superintendent friend was
facing the "perfect storm" for failures. Flex couplings between the motor
and the pumps are fine, especially when no alignment tools other than a
straightedge were used to align the motor and pump. A flex coupling may
correct some misalignment, but when the ability of the flex coupling to
correct is exceeded, the motor, pump, or both may be headed for failure.

We took several readings of the 60 hp motor bearings (outboard/inboard)

using an ultrasonic pistol. Readings were in the mid-range of 35 to 45
decibels. However, one pump was trending at 53 decibels. It also had a
loud pitch, an overall loudness that really didn't sound like bearings.
Puzzled by this, we took a reading with a vibration data collector. The
vibration analysis indicated an imbalance problem, but not a significant
bearing problem as of yet.

Fast forward a few months. All eight of the filtration motor and pumps
were removed, the old motor stands replaced and the flex couplings
(motor/pump) replaced with a direct drive setup. Still wanting to engage
the waterpark in the idea of trending its pumps, I called once more and
proposed taking readings and preparing a database for future readings.
This time I was joined by Adrian Messer, Manager of U.S. Operations for
UE Systems, Inc. (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Adrian Messer, UE Systems, Inc., ultrasonic inspection of bearings.

Adrian brought with him a new state-of-the-art ultrasound instrument. The
fairly new instrument has tons of onscreen applications at your fingertips.

With the UE Systems' Ultraprobe 15000 Touch instrument set for dual
display of fast fourier transform (FFT) and the time waveform chosen
(Figure 4a, top), we watched and listened. What we saw clearly was
significant harmonics. Was it harmonics from the inner, outer, cage, ball
pass frequencies? We didn't know right away. Changing the display to
just FFT (Figure 4b, bottom), we noticed a cursor highlighting a fault
frequency of 175.8.