Shaft Alignment Using Strain Gages

A detailed description of the strain-gage shaft alignment procedure is presented, including a comparison between bearing reactions obtained using strain gages and hydraulic jacking. The various gage configurations available for measuring bending moments are discussed and estimates of the resulting error in bending moment are given. A simplified procedure is presented to calculate bearing reactions from the measured moments. Gage site requirements to produce a determinate system are established and a method is outlined to establish bearing reaction error bounds for a combination of gage configurations and sites.