Acoustic / Vibration Monitoring

Rotating machinery tells you when something is wrong - long before it fails - if you know how to listen. Bearings, shafts, gearboxes, and generators all produce characteristic vibration and acoustic signatures that change as components degrade. A bearing developing a fault produces a specific frequency pattern weeks or months before it fails. Shaft misalignment creates a repeatable vibration signature that worsens progressively under load. Inadequate lubrication produces a distinctive acoustic emission that is detectable long before bearing surfaces are damaged.

Acoustic and vibration monitoring instruments make these signals readable. Rather than waiting for an audible noise, a rise in temperature, or a performance drop - by which point significant damage has often already occurred - your engineers can detect and trend developing faults from the earliest stages, and plan intervention at a time and place of their choosing.

Our range of acoustic and vibration monitoring instruments covers handheld bearing analysis, portable rotating machinery assessment, and fixed vibration sensors, including wireless configurations, for continuous monitoring of critical equipment.

Read about Acoustic / Vibration monitoring

3RESULTATER NULSTIL

Convential high quality accelerometer. These sensors are also available in a wireless configuration. Range: 0-100 mm/sec.

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What Acoustic & Vibration Monitoring Detects

Bearing condition - bearings are among the most common failure points in rotating machinery. As a bearing degrades - through wear, fatigue, contamination, or inadequate lubrication — it produces increasingly distinctive high-frequency acoustic emissions. Acoustic bearing checkers detect these signatures at a stage when the bearing can still be replaced in a planned outage, rather than after an unplanned failure.

Lubrication state - over- and under-lubrication of bearings are both detectable acoustically. Too little lubricant produces a characteristic emission as surfaces make contact; too much creates turbulence with its own acoustic signature. Acoustic monitoring allows lubrication to be optimised directly from measurement rather than by schedule alone.

Shaft misalignment - misalignment between coupled shafts creates vibration that accelerates bearing and seal wear throughout the drivetrain. Vibration analysis identifies the misalignment signature, allowing correction before the wear it causes becomes the presenting problem.

Rotating machinery health - overall vibration levels on engines, generators, pumps, and fans provide a general indicator of mechanical health. Trending vibration over time reveals developing imbalance, looseness, or resonance issues that would otherwise go undetected until they cause a failure.

Handheld vs Fixed Vibration Monitoring

Handheld instruments are the practical starting point for most vessels. A maintenance engineer can work through a route of bearings, pumps, and other rotating equipment during a watch, building a picture of machine health across the vessel without any permanent installation. Results are available immediately and can be trended over successive rounds.

Fixed vibration sensors, permanently mounted on critical machinery, provide continuous monitoring without requiring crew time. They are best suited to the machinery where a failure would have the greatest immediate consequence, main engine bearings, shaft generators, propulsion gearboxes, where waiting for the next manual round is not acceptable. Wireless sensor configurations reduce installation complexity considerably.

Both approaches are more valuable when measurements are taken consistently over time. A single vibration reading tells you the current level; a series of readings over weeks and months tells you whether a machine is stable, improving, or deteriorating.

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Martin Søvind Jensen

Tel: +45 2761 4502

Email: Marine@insatech.com

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FAQ

We already check bearings by hand and listen for unusual noise. Is that not enough?

Manual checks and experienced ears catch problems that are already significant. Acoustic and vibration instruments detect faults at a much earlier stage - typically when a bearing has developed a defect but still has substantial remaining life. That earlier detection is what creates the window to plan a replacement at a convenient time rather than responding to an unexpected failure. The two approaches are complementary, not alternatives.

How often should we carry out acoustic bearing checks?

For most vessels, a monthly route covering main engine bearings, generator bearings, pumps, and other critical rotating equipment is a practical starting point. High-risk or heavily loaded machinery may warrant more frequent checks. The value increases significantly when results are recorded and trended over time, so that a change in a machine's signature is visible against its own history rather than assessed in isolation.

Our main concern is the shaft generator. Would a handheld instrument or a fixed sensor be more appropriate?

or a shaft generator that runs continuously and where a failure has direct commercial consequences, a fixed sensor providing continuous monitoring is the stronger choice. It removes the dependency on a manual round and provides real-time data that can trigger an alarm if vibration levels change suddenly - which a scheduled handheld check would miss if it occurred between rounds. Our technical team can advise on sensor selection and mounting positions for specific configurations.

Can vibration monitoring be used alongside other condition monitoring methods?

Yes, and the combination is more powerful than either alone. Vibration monitoring detects mechanical faults in rotating components; lube oil analysis detects the wear those faults produce in the oil. When both show a change at the same time, the case for investigation is much stronger than either signal in isolation. Many operators use vibration monitoring as an early warning trigger and oil analysis to confirm and characterise what is happening.