Abstract:The strain of the ring gear can reflect the dynamic characteristics of planetary gearboxes directly, which makes it an ideal signal to monitor the health condition of the gearbox. To overcome the disadvantages of traditional methods, a new approach for the dynamic measurement of ring gear strains using fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the installation of FBGs is determined according to the analysis for the strain distribution of the ring gear. Secondly, the parameters of the FBG are determined in consideration of the accuracy and sensitivity of the measurement as well as the size of the ring gear. The strain measured by the FBG is then simulated under non-uniform strain field conditions. Thirdly, a dynamic measurement system is built and tested. Finally, the strains of the ring gear are measured in a planetary gearbox under normal and faulty conditions. The experimental results showed good agreement with the theoretical results in values, trends, and the fault features can be seen from the time domain of the measured strain signal, which proves that the proposed method is feasible for the measurement of the ring gear strains of planetary gearboxes.
A pulsed eddy current testing (PECT) method is proposed to measure the gap of non-ferromagnetic metal casing. Firstly, the detection sensitivity to the casing gap of the voltage signal induced respectively by time-harmonic excitation current and by pulsed excitation current are calculated theoretically and compared. Then the advantages of PECT method for gap measurement are discussed. Secondly, the difference curve of the time-domain induced voltage signal between two gaps near the nominal value is presented. And the value of the induced voltage signal corresponding to the peak time of the difference curve is extracted to serve as the signal characteristic. Furthermore, using a calibrated casing, the function relationship between the signal characteristic and the casing gap is derived by curve fitting. Finally, the casing gap can be determined rapidly through the induced voltage at the peak time. This paper provides a reliable non-destructive testing method for the casing gap measurement, and compared with the existing sinusoidal eddy current testing method, the PECT method can significantly improve the signal-to-noise ratio and the detection sensitivity to the casing gap.
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