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Dampening Pump Skids to Reduce Resonation

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Are you trying to redesign the pump skid itself? Or are you looking to add flexible dampening mounts to the entire skid? Assuming you mean damping mounts, there are a number of commercial isolator manufacturers that can help you (e.g. Barry, Lord, Mason, etc). They will need to know the exciting frequencies, total weight, and desired vibration reduction to assist.

We are open to all options, thanks for all input.

This pump base is hollow and on the same steel base frame as other pumps.

Wow that's impressive and also quite informative. It appears the entire skid base is moving relative to the foundation. There is also relative motion at the welded frame members likely due to "fatigue?" cracks (you should check and confirm). Others will chime in I'm sure but I would not be recommending any type of damping to fix this problem. I would look to be repairing the entire skid and have it re-installed and grouted by a competent contractor.

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Thank you Jim, that maybe the best way to go. We will go onsite to look this over. The units have a history of poor installation, alignment, and irregular fixes like sanding the shaft down to accommodate interference fit instead of heating up coupling bushings to expand over interference fit shaft. They had a policy of swapping motors and pumps after so many hours, no matter their condition which is why they called us in to monitor and repair.

Considering the obvious (at least to me) problem the movie shows, I am not at all surprised of the history. This could be a classic case history of fixing the root-cause problem to solve all the issues noted. Time will tell. Please keep this forum informed of what you find as you go forward. Regards

That's the ultimate fix which we discussed for all the pump sets originally with the client in regards to their loss of motors and pumps. It is a history of mechanical repair including alignment, sanding down diameters of shafts for interference fit instead of heating coupling bushing in oil bath.

What is the vibration frequency of the vertical motion on the I-beam skid? Does it make the speed of the pump shown or something else that shares the skid? Is there a lot of pipe motion as well? Did you inspect all pipe supports and hangers? A 2-step approach could be considered: 1) Epoxy grout under I-beams (possibly raising about 1/2" or more to get suitable grout thickness along with epoxy-set anchor bolts. 2) Cement non-shrink or epoxy (preferred) grout to fill entire I-beam skid frame. A little more detective work might lead to a solution that is both effective and has lowest cost.

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