| ISCORMA-4 Summary ISCORMA-4 was held 27-31 August 2007, in the Sheraton Cavalier Hotel in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Calgary is a beautiful city of unique buildings and historical venue sights situated along the banks of the Bow River. Calgary is the home of the world famous Calgary Stampede held annually in August as well as the site of the 1988 Winter Olympic Games. It is considered the gateway to the Canadian Rockies. The Organizing Committee consisted of the following: Donald E. Bently, Chairman; Jerzy T. Sawicki, Vice Chairman; Agnes Muszynska, Robert C. Hendricks, David P. Fleming and Zdzislaw Gosiewski. They worked throughout the previous two years collecting and conducting the review process for 46 papers submitted to the conference regarding the causes, behavior, and alleviation of instability phenomena in rotating machinery. ISCORMA-4 opened with the Welcome Reception on Monday evening from 6 to 8pm in the Sheraton East/West Ballroom. After brief introductions by Donald E. Bently, Chairman and CEO of Bently Pressurized Bearing Company and Professor Jerzy Sawicki of Cleveland State University, the guests were welcomed to Calgary by Ms. Heather M. Douglas, President and CEO of the Calgary Chamber of Commerce. As this conference is expected to be the final ISCORMA symposium, Agnes Muszynska gave a brief program and slide show of the three previous ISCORMA Conferences which was very informative and entertaining. The conference registration desk and all session rooms were located on the first floor of the hotel. Registration opened at 2 p.m. on Monday, 27 August and closed after the final sessions on Thursday, 30 August. Those attending the registration desk included Carol Money from Bently Pressurized Bearing Company and Bob Grissom, Consultant. An Advanced Seminar was offered during this ISCORMA conference in addition to the sessions where the technical papers were presented. Seminar topics included: Phase and Vibration Vectors, Data Plots, Fundamental Synchronous Rotor Response, The Art of Machinery Diagnostics, Fluid Induced Instability, Why Root Locus is Better Than Logarithmic Decrement, Transducer Selection for Experimentation and Machinery Protection, 13,000 Hp Induction Motor - A Balancing Case History and Rotor-to-Stationary Part Rub and Its Diagnosis. These seminar sessions were very popular. During the three days of parallel sessions, 45 papers were presented. The sessions included the following topics: General Rotordynamics, Diagnostics, Seal Dynamics, Rotor To Stationary Part Rubbing, Tilting Pad Bearings, Identification, Pressurized Bearing, Balancing, Bearing Dynamics, Modeling, Vibration Control, Blade Dynamics, Gear Transmission, Stability, Rotor Cracks and Rotating Machinery Diagnostics. The Keynote Speaker was Dr. Neville Rieger, President and Chief Scientist, at STI Technologies, Inc, Rochester, New York. His presentation was entitled "Experiences With Flutter Vibrations of Low-Pressure Steam Turbine Blades". PARTICIPANTS REPRESENTED THE FOLLOWING COUNTRIES:
There were two co-chairpersons assigned to each session to introduce the speakers, lead discussions and control timing. Each paper was assigned 25 minutes, including the discussion. There were two student volunteers from the University of Calgary-School of Engineering who assisted with administrative duties during the conference. They were: Nikolay Bukharin and Sheldon Osinski. Mr. Bently stated, "It was my intention to not publish any papers on magnetic bearings, but obviously a few got approved without my noticing that they were active magnetic bearing papers. These bearings, because of their low gain tendency, do not have much gain in active measurement on rotating machinery by their fundamental nature. I will note though that there is a possible future application of a magnetic bearing which would be for a very deep space flight, millions and millions of miles, where expenditure of any substance such as a gas or liquid would be prohibited." "A magnetic bearing might have a chance of succeeding if it is kept within allowable Curie temperature so that it maintains high permeability," says Bently. Bently continues, "In my talk on the opening evening, I told you that Dr. Muszynska and I had produced books showing that pressurized bearings control the stability of the machine. You may have observed that in the last two or three years that there have been no papers on oil whirl and oil whip which indicates that people are beginning to understand that pressurization relieves the instability and allows machinery to remain stable without oil whirl and oil whip. You also saw our new attendee, Ambrose Canning from Tasmania. The Tasmanians accept bearing pressurization as standard operating procedure and cannot understand why the rest of the world does not follow their lead. It was very pleasing to see their natural leadership for this new methodology in spite of coming from twelve flying hours from Tasmania, just south of Australia at the New Zealand end." We had computer problems with Dr. Muszynska's presentation and had to change computers at the last minute. If you did not receive a copy of her presentation and would like one, you can contact me at don@bpb-co.com or Dr. Muszynska at agnesm@charter.net or by letter to: Bently Pressurized Bearing Company, 1711 Orbit Way, Minden, Nevada, USA 89423. An optional activity, "Dinner With a View," was held on Tuesday evening at the Calgary Tower. Forty-nine participants enjoyed a wonderful meal in the rotating restaurant along with a 360 degree view of Calgary and the surrounding Rockies. A highlight of the evening was the ability to step out on the glass floor 525 feet above the city! The Award Dinner was held on Thursday evening in the Sheraton East/West Ballroom. The Bel Canto String Duet played during the dessert service. The award for Best Paper was presented to Adam Kotowski and Pawel Lindstedt for their paper entitled "Applications of Acoustic Impulse Response in Diagnostic Tests of Rotor Blade in Stationary Conditions". Since the authors were unable to attend the conference, Dr. Zdzislaw Gosiewski accepted the award on their behalf. The award included a quarter ounce gold coin embedded in each of the award plaques. On Friday, thirty-four conference attendees went on the optional all day tour to Banff, Lake Louise and Moraine Lake. Commentary was provided throughout the tour. Attendees were able to see Canada Olympic Park, Hogsback Ridge, Foothills, Scott Lake Hill, Bow River, Tunnel Mountain, Hoodoos, Surprise Corner, Cave & Basin National Historic Site and Hillsdale Meadows. Lunch was included at the Old Spaghetti Factory in historic Banff. It was a most enjoyable and informative day. Anyone interested in the proceedings from this conference as well as the previous three conferences may purchase the Proceedings Books and CDs via our website at www.iscorma.com/purchase Abstracts | Awards | Photos | Summary
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