Comparison of integrated micro-electrical-mechanical system and piezoelectric accelerometers for machine condition monitoring

Abstract

The design and implementation of instrumentation to collect real-time vibrational data from a quasi-steady state machine (a dry vacuum pump) for fault prediction diagnostics is presented. When simultaneous multiple data collection points are required on the same machinery, the use of conventional transducers such as piezoelectric accelerometers becomes impractical due to their price, as each needs an expensive associated charge amplifier. The use of inexpensive micromachined integrated micro-electrical-mechanical system accelerometers such as ADXL105 has been explored here as an alternative to piezoelectric accelerometers for obtaining reliable and predictable data for diagnostics. Surface micromachined accelerometers are a new technology and their usage for vibrational analysis has been conservative due to concerns over increased noise levels and tolerance to high temperatures. In this article, it is shown that such concerns can be allayed. The time and frequency domain vibration signatures obtained using both types of accelerometers are compared. The study shows that ADXL105 accelerometers can be an effective alternative low-cost high-quality solution for machine condition monitoring.

On mechanical vibration analysis of a multi degree of freedom system based on arduino and MEMS accelerometers

“…In the literature one may found that the level of precision of MEMS-based sensors has raised significantly [37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45], which allows its use in teaching, research and industrial applications, which require a higher precision in their results. The same can be spoken about the Arduino microcontrollers present in the market, which are being used in a wide range of applications from teaching and research to industrial.…”

Performance evaluation of MEMS accelerometers

“…Thanagasundram and Schlindwein [9] have used the MEMS accelerometer together with a conventional accelerometer for measuring the vibration of a pump during its normal operation. They [9] found the frequency content from both sensors were in agreement.…”

A fault detection tool using analysis from an autoregressive model pole trajectory

“…Brüel and Kjaer (B&K) 4370V accelerometer which were mounted radially on the pump running at 105 Hz [17]. The signals from the ADXL105 were filtered with an Prior to downsampling, the vibration signals were also pre-processed by amplitude demodulation [18].…”

“…The five bearing parameters that must be known to calculate the bearing defect (17) The angles of the AR pole locations are related to the characteristic bearing defect frequencies. For a fixed rotating speed, the AR pole angles are fixed as they are determined by the geometrical shape of the ball bearings used but the distances of the pole locations from the unit circle are determined by the levels of vibration at that particular frequency.…”