Initial Onsite Assessment Guideline

I recently completed a 41-year career at a large US nuclear power plant, of which the final 26 years were as a machine vibration analyst. Shortly after receiving my initial vibration training, my employer began asking me to do things I wasn’t sure I was trained to do?  A typical scenario began when somebody, commonly an operator or maintenance person, identified a machine that seemed to be vibrating abnormally.  As a result, I would be assigned the task to evaluate the machine’s condition and report out before I went home that day.  My early training enabled me to evaluate spectra and identify likely sources of vibration.  But the supervision at my plant expected more.  They expected a recommendation whether the machine may be left in service or must be shut down. They wanted to know whether maintenance was necessary; and, if so, what specific maintenance that was? They wanted me to identify next steps, additional inspections or research?  And they wanted it presented in a written report, committed to a permanent record, before I went home that day.  

Linked below is a guideline summarizing steps I applied when tasked to create an initial evaluation of a machine’s condition.  This guideline is not prescriptive, and it will not provide you all the answers… you still have to think about it.  For me, however, it provides reminders during sometimes urgent and stressful circumstances… guiding me through a sequence that always seemed to yield insight.  The result is not necessarily a full or decisive evaluation, but one intended to serve the immediate needs of a station and create a path forward.