Solve your misalignment and soft foot issues
Inaccurate mounting of your machinery can cause misalignment, which is a major contributor to rotating equipment failure. When shafts or belts are misaligned, the risk of unplanned machine downtime rises dramatically.
Misalignment
Arises when the driver and driven shafts/pulleys aren't properly aligned. It reduces the life of bearings, shafts, seals, and couplings, making them shake and vibrate against each other. This causes quick wear and could end up in complete operational failure of your machinery.
It is widely believed that more than 50% of machine failures are due to misalignment
Soft foot
Occurs when the machine is not standing on all its “feet”. It can result in a wide range of problems such as misalignment, high vibration levels, accelerated wear and tear, premature bearing and seals failure, metal fatigue and distortion, and increased power consumption.
About 70% of all rotating equipment failures are caused by soft foot
Traditional mounting and alignment solutions
Steel blocks
The use of steel blocks is a time-consuming and specialist job. It's a trial and error procedure, where the measurements, fitting and machining are repeated until the steel block provides a sufficient contact area with the machine foot. Considerable cost arise from machining these blocks and the time spent on the alignment procedure.
Shims
The use of pre-cut shims it's easy, quick and cheap, making it one of the most common solutions. If stacking is needed, it might lead to misalignment overtime and the angular soft-foot is almost impossible to solve by using these.
Epoxy resins
The procedure of preparing, pouring, and waiting for the curing is a time-consuming process, that needs to be performed by specialized personnel. When realignment is needed all the epoxy has to be carved out which is difficult and time consuming. Being a permanent solution, the risk of error is high and if occurs, the full process needs to be repeated.
Mounting and alignment made easier
Carbon steel chocks
Surface treated chocks
Stainless steel chocks
Low profile chocks
The SKF Vibracon chock is an adjustable and re-usable interface between a foundation and machine foot which fills the gap, eliminating soft foot. It's an environmentally friendly and workers safe solution that assures easy and accurate mounting and alignment by having:
- High load capacity
- A broad adjustment range
- An optimized bolt/chock combination and load path through the product
- Reduced chock height across the entire range
- Adjustable and reusable chock
For each application the right chocking solution
You can find a wide range, suitable for indoor applications like the factory floor, as well as outdoor extreme environments such as humid or salty climates. SKF Vibracon chocks are used in many industries, including marine, food & beverage, pulp & paper, rail, offshore, agriculture, semiconductors, gas compression and power generation. They are typically used for chocking of equipment like generators, gas, diesel and LNG engines, compressors, electric motors and gearboxes.
Discover SKF Vibracon chocking solutions
