Overview

Misalignment is a major source of vibration on machines with components that have relative motion. Anyone who has responsibility for machines and their satisfactory performance will have to deal with alignment at some time. Knowledge is the most valuable tool to approach problems of any kind. This book is intended to provide alignment knowledge.

Anyone contemplating the purchase of alignment tools should scan chapters 3, 8, and 18 for decision-making comments. Satisfactory alignments are being achieved today with simple machine-shop gages and simple methods. The methods are the primary means for successful results. A knowledgeable engineer or mechanic is the primary instrument for achieving success. Dial indicators are the measuring gages of choice. High-tech gages, like lasers, are the least significant factor for good results on shaft-to-shaft alignment; they are useless for checking bearing alignments. This is not intended to degrade their usefulness where appropriate, but rather to warn of their cost-benefit relationship. Chapter 18 has more information.

This book is intended to be a training manual for the person who must perform alignment, or somehow be involved with it, perhaps in a quality-control function or vibration analysis. It covers all of the common instruments for measuring, the tools for moving machines, and the methods. Most important, it discusses the pitfalls and how to work around them.

This book also serves as a reference for the general subject of alignment and vibration of machines. The chapters are not arranged in sequential order, but rather in discrete topics. Any chapter...