Application of vibration sensing in monitoring and control of machine health

In this paper, an application for monitoring and control of machine health using vibration sensing is developed. This vibration analyzer is able to continuously monitor and compare the actual vibration pattern against a vibration signature, based on a fuzzy fusion technique. More importantly, this intelligent knowledge-based real-time analyzer is able to detect excessive vibration conditions much sooner than a resulting fault could be detected by an operator. Subsequently, appropriate actions can be taken, say to provide a warning or automatic corrective action. This approach may be implemented independently of the control system and as such can be applied to existing equipment without modification of the normal mode of operation. Simulation and experimental results are provided to illustrate the advantages of the approach taken in this application