Vibration Analysis & Condition Monitoring Fault Diagnosis

What you'll learn

---

Read a vibration spectrum and identify the dominant fault from the pattern, not the peak height
Separate unbalance, misalignment, bent shaft and looseness using discriminating evidence
Detect bearing faults early using fault frequencies and envelope or demodulation techniques
Diagnose gear, motor, pump, fan and compressor faults from their characteristic signatures
Apply ISO 10816 and ISO 20816 evaluation zones correctly and understand their limits
Select transducers and measurement locations that produce data worth analysing
Set alarm levels that generate action rather than noise, and design a workable data collection route
Use phase analysis and orbit plots to resolve cases a spectrum alone cannot settle
Identify resonance, critical speeds and transient behaviour during run-up and coast-down
Take a diagnosis through to a decision - balance, align, modify, repair or run on
Requirements

---

No prior vibration or condition monitoring experience is required - the basics are built up from the start
Any engineering, technical or maintenance background is enough to follow the course
Comfortable with basic algebra - fault frequency calculations are worked step by step
Helpful but not essential: access to vibration data or a collector at work, to apply the material as you go
No software or purchases needed - no analysis package or licence is required
Description

---

This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.
▸ A machine that is about to fail has been saying so for weeks. In a language almost nobody on site reads.
Vibration is the richest diagnostic data a rotating machine produces. It distinguishes unbalance from misalignment, a failing bearing from a loose foot, a resonance from a genuine fault - usually months before anything else does. And on most sites it is either not collected, or collected and never properly read.
The result is a maintenance function that reacts. Machines are opened to find out what is wrong with them, bearings are changed on a calendar, and the same bad actor comes back three times because nobody found the cause.
This course teaches the reading. Not the theory of vibration for its own sake - the evidence-to-root-cause path that turns a spectrum into a decision.
▸ Diagnosis first, theory only where it earns its place
Every fault type is taught the same way: the mechanism, what it does to the spectrum and the waveform, what discriminates it from the fault it is most often confused with, and what to do about it. Unbalance and misalignment look similar until you know what separates them; bearing faults are invisible until you know where to look.
The programme side is covered honestly, because this is where most condition monitoring efforts actually die. Route design, alarm setting, data quality, who reads the data, and what happens to a finding after it is raised. A programme that survives its first year is a management achievement as much as a technical one.
Five focused sections, worked through in an afternoon.
▸ What you will master
● Read a vibration spectrum and identify the dominant fault from the pattern rather than the peak height
● Separate unbalance, misalignment, bent shaft and looseness - the four that are confused most often
● Detect bearing faults early using fault frequencies and the envelope techniques that reveal them
● Diagnose gear and gearbox faults from mesh frequency and sideband behaviour
● Recognise flow-induced vibration in pumps and distinguish it from a mechanical cause
● Identify electrical faults in motors and know why they are so often misread as mechanical
● Apply ISO 10816 and ISO 20816 evaluation zones correctly, and understand what the zones do and do not mean
● Set alarms that generate action rather than noise, and design a route that produces usable data
● Use phase analysis and orbit plots to resolve the cases a spectrum alone cannot settle
● Identify resonance and critical speeds, and know when the answer is a structural change rather than a repair
▸ Who this course is for

---

---

● Reliability and maintenance engineers running or rebuilding a condition monitoring programme
● Rotating equipment and machinery engineers diagnosing recurring machine problems
● Vibration technicians and analysts who collect data and want to interpret it with more confidence
● Maintenance supervisors and planners deciding what to intervene on and when
● Operations engineers who see the alarms and need to understand what they are being told
● Graduate engineers entering reliability, maintenance or rotating equipment roles
▸ The skill with the clearest career return
Vibration analysis is one of the few technical skills in plant engineering with a visible market rate attached to it. Analysts are scarce, the work is portable across industries, and the ability to say "that is a bearing, not misalignment, and here is why" is immediately demonstrable in a way that most engineering knowledge is not.
It is also the fastest route to being the person who is called first when a machine is behaving strangely - which is a career position as much as a technical one.
▸ Why learn it here
Taught by a Chartered Engineer (CEng MIMechE) with over fifteen years delivering safety-critical projects in oil, gas and energy infrastructure - from the perspective of someone who has had to act on this data on live plant rather than present it from a textbook.
Alarm levels and acceptance limits are not universally governed, and this course says so. Where ISO 10816 or 20816 gives an evaluation zone it is identified as such; where a limit is machine-specific, owner-specific or built from baseline data, that is stated plainly rather than presented as a rule.
This course is independent training and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or accredited by ISO or any certification body.
▸ What you get
● Structured on-demand video across 20 focused lessons and five sections
● A final exam
● All lectures presentations downloadable
● Lifetime access on mobile and TV, and a certificate of completion
▸ No prior vibration experience is required - measurement, transducers and the frequency spectrum are built from first principles. Comfort with basic algebra is enough.
Enrol now and start reading what the machine has been telling you.
Who this course is for

---

Reliability and maintenance engineers running or rebuilding a condition monitoring programme
Rotating equipment and machinery engineers diagnosing recurring machine problems
Vibration technicians and analysts who collect data and want to interpret it with more confidence
Maintenance supervisors and planners deciding what to intervene on and when
Operations engineers who receive the alarms and need to understand what they mean
Graduate engineers entering reliability, maintenance or rotating equipment roles
Homepage

---