03-12: Cost Effective Cooling Tower Fan Vibration Monitoring

Installation of a low cost vibration system is being deployed at Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant using accelerometers on cooling tower fan gearboxes. While this system does not have an automatic data gathering or vibration trip capability, the manual data is used to improve the reliability of the fans while reducing vibration levels and maintenance costs. Accelerometers are installed on the gearboxes perpendicular to the drive shaft and the cable runs the length of the support structure ending outside of the fan shroud at the drive motor. During route vibration data collection, additional gearbox vibration overall values and spectra are stored with the conventional motor data.