11.

BALANCING OF ROTATING AND RECIPROCATING

MASSES

Inertia forces cause shaking of machine members and which
may induce unwanted vibrations.
Balancing is a technique of correcting or eliminating unwanted
inertia forces, there by neutralizing or minimizing unpleasant
and injurious vibratory effects.
Balancing of inertia forces is effected by introducing additional
masses or by removing some mass to counteract the
unbalanced forces.

11.1. STATIC BALANCE
Static balance is a balance of forces due to the action of gravity.
Consider the disc and shaft combination shown in fig 1.
The shaft, which is assumed to be perfectly straight, rests on
hard and rigid rail and rolls without friction.
Roll the disc gently by hand and allow it to come to rest.
1






Then, mark the lowest point of the periphery of the disc, repeat
this many times and observe the location of the marks.
if the marks are placed randomly, then the disc is balanced.
If the marks are concentrated in the same area, then the disc is
statically unbalanced;
i.e. the axis of the shaft and center of mass of the disc do not coincide.
The position of the marks indicates the position of the unbalance
but not the magnitude.
The correlation of the unbalance is effected by trial and error
and this is done by either drilling out material at the mark or by
adding mass to the periphery opposite to the location of the
mark.
2
For a rotor with different masses as shown in fig 2, the
requirement for static balance is that the center of gravity of the
system be at the axis O-O of rotation.
For this it can be concluded that moments about the x and y-axes
must be zero. i.e.
) 2 ( 0 cos
) 1 ( 0 sin

=
=
u
u
Wr
Wr
3
11.2. STATIC BALANCE MACHINES

4
11.3. DYNAMIC UNBALANCE
Consider the rotor, shown in the figure below with masses m
1

and m
2
placed at opposite ends of the rotor at distances r
1
and
r
2
respectively.
The rotor can be statically balanced in all angular positions if
m
1
= m
2
and r
1
= r
2
.
If the rotor is caused to rotate at e rad/s,
then centrifugal forces m
1
r
1
e
2
and m
2
r
2
e
2

act at masses m
1
and m
2
, respectively.
These forces produce different reactions
on the bearings at A and B.
The entire system of forces rotates with
the rotor at the speed of e rad/s, thus
causing the reaction forces to vary with it.
The requirement for dynamic balance is
the balance of forces due to the action of
inertia forces.

5
11.4. BALANCING OF DIFFERENT MASSES LYING IN THE SAME
TRANSVERSE PLANE
Consider the rotor carrying masses m
1
, m
2
, and m
3
at a radial
distances r
1
, r
2
, and r
3
, respectively, as shown below.
6
For balance of the rotor, the vector sum of all forces, including
the balancing mass, must be equal to zero; i.e.



In scalar terms, equation (4) is written as


Keeping in mind that the term is along r
i
away from the
center O.
Letting


and since is constant, equation (5) can be re-written as
( ) ) 4 ( 0
) 3 ( 0
= =
=

i i i i c
c
r m F
F
e e
) 5 ( 0
2
= =
i i i c
r m F e
i i i
r m
2
e
) 6 (
g
W
m
i
i
=
g
i
2
e
( ) ) 7 ( 0
2
=
i i
r W
g
e
7
Since cannot be zero for some finite value of e,

the above equation reduces to


where W
i
r
i
is a vector in the direction of the inertia force.
For balance of the rotor, equation (8) must be satisfied.
The value W
i
r
i
is tabulated and W
e
r
e
of the balancing mass is
determined so as to satisfy equation (8).
If the mass m
e
is set as the magnitude of the balancing mass,
the radial position of the balancing mass r
e
can then be
calculated, or vice-versa.
Equation (8) can be solved either graphically or analytically.

g
i
2
e
( ) ) 8 ( 0 =
i i
r W
8
11.5. BALANCING OF DIFFERENT MASSES ROTATING IN
DIFFERENT PLANES.
If the rotating masses lie in different transverse planes as shown
below, to achieve balance of the rotor, first, the equation


must be satisfied.
In addition balance of moments due to the inertia forces is also
required.
( ) ) 9 ( 0 =
i i
r W
9
For balance of the rotor, the following conditions must be
satisfied.
i. The sum of the inertia forces must be equal to zero, including those
due to the balancing masses; i.e.


ii. Moments of the inertia forces, including those of the balancing
masses, about an arbitrary axis must be equal to zero; i.e.


where a
i
s are the moment arms of each mass about the arbitrary
axis.
In general, where unbalanced masses lie in different transverse
and different axial planes, the resultant of the unbalanced forces
and the resultant of the unbalanced moments are in different
planes,
In which case a single balancing mass would not satisfy both
equation (10) and (11).
( ) ) 10 ( 0 =
i i
r W
( ) ) 11 ( 0 =
i i i
a r W
10
The inertia force of the balancing mass, given by R
e
, can be
obtained from


where W
i
are the weights of the unbalanced masses and r
i
are their
respective distances from the axis of rotation.
The moment due to the inertia of the balancing mass is


The moment arm of the balancing mass from the arbitrary axis is
obtained from



Equations (10) and (11) can be solved either graphically or
analytically.
( ) ) 12 (

=
i i e
r W R
( ) ) 13 (

=
i i i e
a r W M
( )
( )
) 14 (

= =
i i
i i i
e
e
e
r W
a r W
R
M
a
11