The Art of

Instrumentation &
Vibration Analysis

Back to the Basics –

Forward to the Future
 Our Objective…
• The objective of Condition
Monitoring is to provide information
that will keep machinery operating
longer at the least overall cost.
– What it is NOT:
• Establish new measured point records
• Means to show analytical brilliance
• The answer to every problem!
 Back to the Basics…
• Vibration
– Simple Harmonic Motion
• Oscillation about a Reference Point
• Modeled Mathematically as…

x(t )  X sin t
 Back to the Basics…
Period, T
Unit Circle

RMS

0 to Peak

Peak-to-Peak
 Back to the Basics…

• Basic Signal • Basic Signal

Attributes Attributes
– Dynamic
– Static
• Sensor must
• Slowly respond in fractions
Changing of a Second
• Temperature • Vibration,
Amperage,
Pressure
 • Frequency
Timing, or Phase
– Determined by the• Signal Shape
– Represented by the reciprocal of the Period
time delay between
two signals • CPS or Hz – Waveform
• RPM
– Leading • Simple
• Orders
– Lagging • Complex
• Pattern
Back to the Basics… Recognition

• Dynamic Signal • Amplitude

Fundamentals – Proportional to
– Amplitude the severity of
vibratory motion
– Frequency
– Expressed as
– Timing • Peak to Peak
– Shape • Zero to Peak
• RMS
Peak and RMS Comparison
Relationships of Acceleration,
Velocity and Displacement
 The Big Picture

Sensor(s) Cables Signal Conditioning

Data Acquisition Communications Remote

& Storage Analysis and
Diagnostics
 Displacement Sensors
• Elements
– Probe, matched extension cable, Driver
 Displacement Sensors
• How it Works:
The tip of the probe contains an
encapsulated wire coil which radiates the
driver's high frequency as a magnetic field.
When a conductive surface comes into close
proximity to the probe tip, eddy currents are
generated on the target surface decreasing the
magnetic field strength, leading to a decrease
in the driver's DC output. This DC output is
usually 200mV/mil or in a similar range.
 Displacement Sensors
• Pro’s and Con’s
– Pro’s
• Measures Displacement
• Rugged
– Con’s
• Limited Frequency Range (0-1000Hz)
• Susceptible to electrical or mechanical runout
• Installation Issues
 Velocity Sensors
• Pro’s and Con’s
– Pro’s
• Measures Velocity
• Easier Installation than Displacement
– Con’s
• Limited Frequency Range (0-1000Hz)
• Susceptible to Calibration Problems
• Large Size
 Acceleration Sensors
• Pro’s and Con’s
– Pro’s
• Measures Accel.
• Small Size
• Easily Installed
• Large Frequency Range (1-10,000 Hz)
– Con’s
• Measures Acceleration (requires Integration to Vel.)
• Susceptible to Shock & Requires Power
Machine Speed Sensors
• Displacement Probes
• Active or Passive Magnetic Probes
• Optical Permanent
• Stroboscopes
• Laser Tach
 Voltage or Current?
• Current Output Accelerometers
– 4-20 mA Output
• Proportional to Dynamic Signal and/or Overall
• Voltage Output Accelerometers
– Preferred in U.S.
– Generally 100mV per g Sensitivity
AC and DC Signal Components
• Signals have both AC and DC
– AC considered the “Dynamic” Signal
– DC is the “Static” Signal
• Displacement Probes – Set “Gap” for DC
• Accelerometers – “Bias” voltage is DC
 AC and DC Signal
Components
• How AC and DC
work together:
– AC signal “rides” the
DC bias (VB)
• Affects the Dynamic
Range of the
Sensor.
Power Circuit for Accelerometers
“Strips off”
DC
Voltage
 Grounds
• A Potential Problem
Source
– Ground Loops
• Caused when two or
more grounds are at
different potentials
• Sensors should be
grounded only at the
sensor, not the
monitoring rack!
 Sensor Cables

• Coaxial with BNC Connectors

– Long Coaxial can become antennas!
• Twisted, Shielded Pair
– Teflon Shield – ground at only one end!
 Sensor Cables
• Driving Long Cables
– Under 90 feet, cable capacitance no problem –
Cable Capacitance spec’d in Pico-farads per
foot of cable length
– Over 90 feet or so, CCD must supply enough
current to charge the cable as well as the sensor
amplifier.
• May result in amplifier output voltage becoming “Slew
Rate Limited”
 Sensor Cables
• Output of Sinusoid looks like this:
• What’s Happening?
– The + part of the signal is
being limited by the current
available to drive the cable
capacitance.
– In the – part of the sin wave,
the op-amp must “sink” the
current being discharged by
the cable capacitance.
 Sensor Cables
• Practical Effect:
– Signal distortion produces
harmonics
– May lead to vibration signals
being misinterpreted.
– To calculate the maximum
frequency for a length of cable:
 Signal Conditioning
• Gain
• Integration (Hardware)
• AC/DC Coupling
• Anti-Aliasing Filter(s)
• Sample and Hold Circuit
 Signal Gain Circuit

• X1 and X10 are Common

– Gain is simply amplification of a Signal
– Careful – Should know your vibration
level and the ADC input range first!
• 100mV/g accel; +-5V input range = +-50 g’s
• Can “Clip” Signal
 Signal Integration

• Best to Integrate as close to signal

source as possible
– Reduces noise
 AC/DC Coupling
• Normally, Systems are AC coupled
– Means that there is a DC blocking Capacitor that
only allows AC signal through to the system
• MAARS Innovation
– DC Switch that allows AC and DC to work on the
same data channel without contaminating phase
– Allows use of same channel to record data for
shaft centerline (DC) and Transient data (AC)
 Anti-Aliasing Filters
• What are they and why do I need them?
– Because “false Frequencies” are displayed when
Aliasing is present in a system.
• The maximum frequency component a sampled data
system can accurately handle is its Nyquist limit.
• The sample rate must be greater than or equal to two
times the highest frequency component in the input
signal. When this rule is violated, unwanted or
undesirable signals appear in the frequency band of
interest.
 Aliased Signals
• In old western movies, as a
wagon accelerates, the wheel
picks up speed as expected, and
then the wheel seems to slow,
then stop. As the wagon further
accelerates, the wheel appears
to turn backwards! In reality, we
know the wheel hasn't reversed
because the rest of the movie
action is still taking place.
• What causes this phenomenon?
The answer is that the shutter
frame rate is not high enough to
accurately capture the spinning
of the wheel.
Aliased Signals
• False low-frequency
sin wave…
– Caused by sampling
too slowly
– Violated the Nyquist
Criterion
 Anti-Aliasing Filters
• What are they
and why do I
need them?
– Generally they
are low-pass
filters that do not
pass frequencies
above the ADC’s
range.
– Here is a
representation of
an IDEAL filter…
 Real Anti-Aliasing Filters
• Trade-offs: Elliptic,
Chebyshev,
Butterworth and
Bessel
– Elliptic – sharpest
rolloff, highest
ripple
– Bessel – Lowest
ripple, fat rolloff.
• key advantage is
that it has a linear
phase response
 Sample and Hold Circuit
• Purpose is to take a snapshot of
the sensor signal and hold the
value.
– The ADC must have a stable signal
in order to accurately perform a
conversion.
– The switch connects the capacitor to
the signal conditioning circuit once
every sample period.
• The capacitor then holds the voltage
value measured until a new sample is
acquired.
Data Acquisition and Storage

• Analog to Digital Converter

– Hard disk vs. Flash Memory
– Physical download vs. Ethernet file
Transfer
– FFT Conversion
• Windowing
ADC Analog-to-Digital Converters
• The purpose of the analog to digital converter is
to quantize the input signal from the S&H
• The input voltage can range from 0 to Vref
– What this means is that the voltage reference of the
ADC is used to set the conversion range
– 0V input will cause the converter to output all zeros.
– If the input to the ADC is equal to or larger than Vref,
then the converter will output all ones.
– For inputs between these two voltages, the ADC will
output binary numbers corresponding to the signal
level.
ADC Analog-to-Digital Converters
• Dynamic Range
– Usually defined in dB, depends on the number
of bits used by the ADC
• For example, a 12 bit ADC has 212 possible data
values, or 4,096 “steps” between the lowest and
highest values the ADC can see (0 to 5 Volts, typ.)
• 8-bit is 256 steps
• 16-bit is 65,536 steps, so more is better, right?
ADC Analog-to-Digital Converters
• Wrong!
• Steve Goldman’s Book – pp.46-47
– “Dynamic Range: The Big Lie”
• “That the A/D Converter can sense one part in 16
binary bins is no assurance that the analog circuitry
is good enough to insure that the information going
into the lower bins is not contaminated by electrical
noise.”
ADC Analog-to-Digital Converters
• Dynamic Range
– For a 12 bit ADC…20 log (4095/1) = 72 db
• Theoretical only, electronic noise reduces to 65 db
– For a 16 bit ADC…20 log (65536/1) = 96 db
• Electronic noise may make this only 80 db
• Massively more data to manipulate w/o
much practical gain in Dynamic Range.
ADC Analog-to-Digital Converters
• Sampling Rate
– “Real-Time” Rate in samples/sec
• 60,000 samples per sec/2.56 = 23,437 Hz Fmax
• May also get divided by the number of channels in
a multi-channel system
 Windowing

• Required to solve “Leakage”

– Several Types
• Uniform
• Hanning – Most Commonly used
• Hamming
• Blackman-Harris
 Windowing

• Why do we use the Hanning Window?

– Best compromise between frequency
resolution and amplitude accuracy for
steady-state machinery analysis
– Uniform or Flat-Top is the best choice for
transient machinery analysis.
 Windowing
• What is leakage?
– Caused when the time waveform signal
does NOT begin and end at the same
point, introducing spurious frequencies.
– The Window or weighting function
attenuates the signal towards the edge of
the window – minimizing leakage.
 Windowing
• Example:
 Windowing
• Leakage Example:
Time signal
1
0.5
Amplitude [V]

0
-0.5
-1

0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
Time [ms]
 Windowing
• Hanning Window:
Time signal
1
0.5
0
-0.5
-1

0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
Time [ms]
 Types of Averaging
• Linear – Most commonly used
• Peak Hold – Coastdown and Impact
• Exponential
– Weights most recently acquired data
more heavily – used for Impact
• Time Synchronous –TSA
– Triggered by tach – Shaft and Harmon.
 Trending Overalls
• Limited Value
– Better than Nothing
– May miss some
types of failures
 Spectral Resolution

• Common Values
– 100 to 3200 “Lines”
– 400 or 800 typical
– Fmax/Lines = Frequency Resolution
• 1000 Hz/400 lines = 2.5 Hz Resolution
 Spectral Integration
• Where does the “Ski-
Slope come from?
– Integrating Acceleration to
get Velocity pops out a
constant value, which is
manifested as a “DC”
component because it has
no frequency dependence!
 Spectral
Integration
• How do we
solve this
problem?
 Spectral
Integration
• Truth is – we
can’t!
– It’s PHYSICS!
• What we can do
is…
– “Zero” the first 5
or so Spectral
Bins!
 Spectrum Analysis
• Machine Component Condition
– Identified by Frequency
– Severity Indicated by Amplitude
– Rate of Deterioration Indicated by
Spectral Comparison over Time
Spectrum Analysis
 Waveform Analysis
• Pattern Recognition is Key
– Requires understanding of Machine
Components
• Gearbox
• Bearings
Waveform Analysis
Orbit Analysis
 Transient Analysis
• Long-Term Time Waveforms
• Bode – Nyquist Plots
• RPM vs. Time
• Waterfall Plots
• Cascade Plots
Machine Transients
 Vibration Severity
• When do I make the call?
– Alarm Levels
– Fault Levels
– Do you use GM, API, ISO Guidelines?
– Risk vs. Reward
 Communications
• Area of Greatest Technology Progress
– Email, FTP, Internet (High Speed)
– Industrial Ethernet
– Wireless Phone, Modem, Ethernet
– Satellite
• Digital Revolution! (Remote Desktop)
Communications
Analysis and Diagnostics
• Area of LEAST Progress
– Not Fundamentally Changed in 20 years
– Personnel Downsizing – not going to
come back, either
– What is a Vibration Analyst’s Career Path?
• In-house are becoming contracted services
• Constant re-training to solve yesterday’s
problems!
Analysis and Diagnostics
• Will Technology come to
the Rescue?
– Remote, centralized
Diagnostics
– Rapid Service Company
Growth
– Rapid Growth in Wireless
Sensor Technology has
Cooled
• Power Supply Problem
• Spawned new VC-backed
Research Companies