every machine or group of machine elements moves in ways that produce repetitive vibration at precisely defined frequencies.
these vibration frequencies can be determined from the geometry of the machine elements and located on a plot that shows how much vibration there is at any given frequency called a vibration spectrum .("what's a spectrum?").
the vibration spectrum allows us to see the vibration caused by coupling inaccuracies, gear mesh, bearing faults, and many other sources.
we at vanguard believe that the only reliable method of assessing machine health from vibration measurements is through trending, - that is, monitoring changes in a machine's vibration spectrum.
now, using special signal processing techniques and statistical analyses, we can monitor the progress of any developing machine fault that results in increasing vibration. once we determine the maximum amount of vibration we're going to allow a fault to generate before we repair the machine, we can trend the amount of vibration caused by a particular fault and predict how much time is left before the repair should be made.
