Jo Jun 26, 2022

Ri Yong Ho, a section head at the Faculty of Heat Engineering, has developed an instrument that can measure and analyze vibration of rotating machinery such as steam turbine generators real-time.

As a steam turbine generator is composed of rotors that are supported by their pedestals, vibration state of all the pedestals should be measured and analyzed at the same time by a multi-channel instrument.

The multi-channel vibration instrument acquires vibration signals of up to 16 channels at high speed at the same time and transmits them to the computer so that one can measure and analyze vibration state of all the pedestals of turbine generators, diagnose vibration fault and decrease vibration level by taking necessary measures like balancing.

The multi-channel vibration instrument is composed of analog signal processing circuit, key-phase pulse input circuit, digital signal processing circuit, USB communication circuit and power supply circuit.

The analog signal processing circuit does overvoltage protection, filtering and amplification of vibration signals, and then sends them to the digital signal processing circuit.

Digital signal processing is performed by a microchip, in which AD conversion of 16-channel analog signals, measurement of the rotating speed and vibration phase by key-phase pulse, saving of vibration waveforms and communication control take place.

The acquired vibration waveforms of 16 channels are transmitted immediately to the microchip which has USB communication function by means of parallel communication mode and then they are real-time transmitted to computers through USB ports.

In the power supply circuit, AC 220V power is converted to stable direct current voltages 5V and ±12V and then supplied to every signal processing circuit.

The computer performs digital filtering and integral of multi-channel vibration waveforms received from the vibration instrument, transforms vibration acceleration signals into vibration velocity signals and vibration displacement signals, calculates vibration amplitude to measure vibration level, and then makes vibration analyses such as spectrum analysis by fast Fourier transformation, phase analysis and trend analysis.

Besides, it can perform one-plane balancing and two-plane balancing by method of influence coefficient, so field balancing of steam turbine generators can be realized.

We can measure pedestal vibration by linking this instrument with piezoelectric acceleration sensors and electromagnetic speed sensors, and shaft vibration is also measurable when it is connected with eddy displacement sensors.

The measurement range is 0~200㎛ in the case of pedestal vibration and 0~500㎛ in the case of shaft vibration, and the measurement accuracy is 2%.