Impacts of Vibrations in Olive Oil Presses Components

Abstract

Vibrations have bad effects on machines and systems if they are repeated and occurred frequently with a frequency close to the natural frequency of that machine or component. Any machine having rotating parts, will have vibrations, oil presses have a sequence machine, which have rotating parts and oscillators. Such vibrations have different frequencies which may reach to some values closes to the natural frequency of the components which may effect on the performance of the stations’ machine and then on the production line or cycle and hence on quality of olive oil produced. In this study,  the sources of vibrations in such olive oil presses will be investigated, measured, and analyzed and a mechanical solution will be proposed to reduce such vibrations and hence improving such presses performance and increase production of oil and its quality. A SIMIO model is implemented in the study to show the effects of vibrations on productivity of a given press (mill) olive oil after adjusted to overcome the vibration effects. The main sources of vibration in rotating machines are misalignment, imbalance and bearings wear, in the current study shaft misalignment and bearings wear are taken as the main sources of vibration. A comparisons between the current study results and findings found in some same condition case in literature is performed and a good agreement is noticed under the same conditions. it was found that by performing some maintenance operations like shaft alignment, mechanical balancing, and improve bearings lubrication, the values of vibration velocity of crushing and extractor components of olive presses can be reduced and hence improving productivity of such olive oil plants ( also this is proved using SIMIO results).