IBERDROLA has launched a renewal plan for the existing condition monitoring systems in their plants in Spain. This plan will be implemented gradually and PROSIG was selected to install their PROTOR Vibration Condition Monitoring System in three IBERDROLA power stations. The contract was awarded to PROSIG in partnership with Aries Ingeniería y Sistemas, who are PROSIG’s representative in Spain.
PROSIG have already successfully commissioned and installed the PROTOR system in the Lada (Asturias, Spain) and the Pasajes (Guipúzcoa, Spain) power plants. The work primarily consists of the supply, installation and signal cabling of the PROTOR systems together with training of the IBERDROLA staff. PROSIG will complete the third installation at the Velilla power plant, located in Palencia, Spain in September 2010.
The annual UK Human Response to Vibration Conference will be held this year at The Institute of Naval Medicine, Alverstoke, Gosport, UK and will run from 6-8 September 2010. The conference provides a forum for exchange of information, dissemination of research findings and an opportunity to be updated in current issues related to human responses to vibration. Presented papers cover all aspects of hand-transmitted vibration, whole-body vibration and motion sickness.
An investigation was made of a sample of automotive components where some were exhibiting a high frequency “tick” or rattle during each operating cycle. This feature could be heard above the normal operating noise. The problem this posed was to measure and analyze components in an objective fashion and classify components as “good” or “bad”.
It sometimes occurs that signals are captured with A-weighting applied to the data by the acquisition device. This can be a problem if, for example, you wish to use the data in a hearing test or to use it for a structural vibration analysis. Now, A-weighting allegedly mimics what the ear does to a signal. If we play back an A weighted sound then we perceive a double A-weighted signal which is clearly not intended. When doing structural work it is usually the lower frequencies, say 2kHz or less, that is generally required. A-weighting seriously attenuates the low frequencies and also applies gain above 1kHz.
Prosig are delighted to have been invited to attend the 10th International Conference on Recent Advances in Structural Dynamics (RASD) to be held at The Institute of Sound and Vibration Research (ISVR) at Southampton University on 12th – 14th July 2010.
Prosig have a long relationship with the ISVR with many staff, both past and present, having worked or studied there and so Prosig are very pleased to have been invited to exhibit at the conference.
Prosig are pleased to announce the launch of two new tools to assist engineers in the measurement and analysis of noise and vibration issues in braking systems.
Controlling noise and vibration from brakes is crucial to subjective customer satisfaction and problems of this type are one of the biggest contributors to warranty costs. Therefore, it is important to be able to accurately and quickly measure and analyze the various phenomena that can cause problems. In addition to all the standard NVH & Refinement tools that Prosig provide, there are now two specific products to address the needs of braking engineers.
These days most people collecting engineering and scientific data digitally have heard of and know of the implications of the sample rate and the highest observable frequency in order to avoid aliasing. For those people who are perhaps unfamiliar with the phenomenon of aliasing then an Appendix is included below which illustrates the phenomenon.
In saying that most people are aware of the relationship concerning sample rate and aliasing this generally means they are aware of it when dealing with constant time step sampling where digital values are measured at equal increments of time. There is far less familiarity with the relevant relationship when dealing with orders, where an order is a multiple of the rotational rate of the shaft. For example second order is a rate that is exactly twice the current rotational speed of the shaft. What we are considering here then is the relationship between the rate at which we collect data from a rotating shaft and the highest order to avoid aliasing.
The relationship depends on how we do our sampling as we could sample at constant time steps (equi-time step sampling), or at equal angles spaced around the shaft (equi-angular or synchronous sampling). We will consider both of these but first let us recall the relationship for regular equi-time step sampling and the highest frequency permissible to avoid aliasing. This is often known as Shannons Theorem.
For our latest collection of videos we’ve searched for the most interesting examples of noise, vibration and acoustic examples and applications we could find. A couple are educational, some are of technical interest and some are just LOUD!
Prosig have recently been awarded ISO 9001 certification. The ISO 9001 certification process recognizes that Prosig’s design, development, manufacturing and service organizations have met and comply with a strict quality standard.
The ISO 9001 certification validates the quality procedures that Prosig has operated from many years and have in the the past gained the company AQAP quality accreditation.
Prosig Managing Director, Jim Marshall, stated “The ISO 9001 process has involved us reviewing all of our quality procedures to ensure that we offer the highest quality products and services to our customers. It also means that the correct procedures are in place to enable a process of continual improvement in the future.”
Prosig are confident that the improvements introduced by the process of certification will lead to real improvements in their products and the service received by their customers.
We’ve had a good look around YouTube and dug up a great collection of educational mechanical engineering videos. There’s a wide range of information here from simple maths tutorial to explanations of the inner workings of the internal combustion engine. We hope you enjoy watching and if you have any favorites of your own please drop a comment in the box at the bottom of the page.
1. Gas Turbine Animation
Nice animation and explanation of the workings of a gas turbine
Ever been lying on the beach and begun to wonder about the state of your LP turbines? Or out on business and anxious to know if that troublesome exciter bearing has settled down? Well with a Prosig PROTOR system and a smartphone anything’s possible. Many of you will be familiar with using your phone as a camera, music player, web browser, email client, calculator or even a navigation device, but not many will have anticipated using it for vibration condition monitoring!
Here we will explain how to use one of the new Android based phones to connect to a PROTOR system. For the purposes of this example we used an Android-based phone and a WiFi connection. It is equally acceptable to use the network providers 2G/3G data connection. And although we chose an Android based phone, similar VNC-viewer apps exist for the iPhone and other smartphones.
This note is based on a real requirement presented to Prosig by a prospective user. It’s the sort of challenge that we relish. This case is a great example of a real-world signal processing requirement and also great test of some of the unique features of Prosig’s DATS software. It also shows the power and flexibility of the new DATS V7.0 worksheets.
On 2nd May we reached the 10 year anniversary of the removal of SA from the NAVSTAR GPS system. For those of you not familiar with SA or Selective Availability it was the switching off of this option that made possible the explosive growth we have seen in automotive and personal GPS devices. For those that are interested, the image is of an early Rockwell military GPS unit. As I have seen commented elsewhere, this was described as “handheld”, but you wouldn’t want to hold one for too long!
We’ve scoured the web (well, YouTube mostly) for the coolest engineering related videos we could find. Have you got your own favourite engineering videos? Please use the comment box at the end of this post to tell us what they are.
This video was sent to us by one of our customers. It shows how a Prosig P8000 was used to measure the vibration transmitted through different configurations of bicycle suspension. Two are traditional setups (a rigid bike and a dual suspension one) and the third is a new interconnected suspension (likened to a railway bogie). This new setup can be used effectively to significantly reduce the shock loads transmitted to a rider and to improve the tyre’s (especially the front tyre) contact with the ground to greatly improve steering control.
You can find some more details and more videos by visiting adriangriffiths Channel on YouTube.
If you’re a fan of Twitter or Facebook there’s a new way to keep up to date with the latest Prosig articles on the Prosig Noise & Vibration Blog. We now have a Twitter and Facebook page! Both Twitter and Facebook lend themselves to different ways of distributing news, images and so on. So as well material from this blog there will be some items that will be unique to both our Twitter & Facebook feeds. Twitter, for example, is ideal for posting more links to interesting noise & vibration stories that we find. On the other hand, Facebook is great for sharing photos and videos. So don’t miss out – follow Prosig on Twitter and keep in touch on Facebook by visiting the Prosig Facebook page and click the Like button.
Some great video lectures from NPTEL, India’s National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning via MeasurementBlog. These are fantastic resources whether you’re just starting out and want to learn some new skills or are looking to refresh your knowledge of a particular topic. The lectures cover all aspects of engineering including mechanical, electrical, civil, computing, electronics and so on.
Research at Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) could lead to the replacement of mechanical compressors in refrigerators and air conditioners. The new technology could lead to a threefold increase in the efficiency of these devices. The principle is quite simple – thermoacoustic compressors work in the same way as traditional mechanical compressors. They compress or expand gases with high-intensity sound waves. Compressing gases generates heat, while letting the gases expand cools things off.
As you may know Prosig have recently released a GPS module for their popular P8000 series of data acquisition systems. The GPS module adds the ability to record accurate position information alongside all of the normal measurement channels. This is a highly useful capability and enables an engineer to easily correlate measured results with vehicle position and behaviour at the time. It also makes it simple to extract data based on position on a test track or road course.
Here’s another post inspired by an office discussion. We were discussing our favourite engineering based websites and realised the results would make a great blog post. So after a rummage through our bookmarks and a little further debate we’ve come up with our top ten sites. We tried to keep the list balanced so you’ll find a few resource sites, a little bit of fun and one or two sites that aren’t purely engineering sites, but contain valuable knowledge for engineers. Do you have a favourite site that we haven’t included? Why not add a comment below and give your favourites a plug.
Road noise (the noise produced by the interaction of tires and road surface) is in many circumstances the dominant noise experienced by vehicle occupants. The requirements for producing quieter roads and tires need to be balanced with the need to ensure that safety is not compromised. For example, a very smooth road surface provides the quietest ride, but this would provide little friction and therefore would provide very poor braking performance. The origin and nature of the sound produced by road/tire interaction is extremely complex.
The V7.0 release of DATS, the long-established signal analysis software from Prosig, contains a comprehensive fatigue analysis package for stress-life, strain-life and weld-life prediction. Prosig also design and manufacture a range of P8000 data acquisition systems for gathering strain data, which means that they are able to supply a total solution from data capture to analysis and reporting. The strain-life analysis is enhanced by the availability of a materials database included within the package. Alternatively, the software can import raw data from a wide range of other suppliers. A wide range of pre-processing routines handle peak-trough extraction, principal strains and principal stresses, rosette signal manipulation and various rainflow counting methods. The final results can be presented in either 3D histograms or tabular form, and can be exported into industry standard formats such as Microsoft Word and Excel.
The latest version of the CAN-bus/GPS (8440) module is now available for the Prosig P8012, P8020 and P8048 systems. The CAN-bus/GPS module has been in use in the field for some time now, recording CAN-bus information for display and analysis alongside noise, vibration, temperature and other signals captured by P8000 systems. The DATS software treats all analog and CAN-bus parameters in the same way so any mixture of parameters can be selected for display in real-time and subsequent processing. CAN-bus parameters can also be used to trigger immediate and pre-triggered captures and to stop captures.
The 8440 module now has an option to capture GPS parameters in addition to the other signals. The data capture software now also supports a realtime GPS track overlayed on a map. Velocity and altitude data measured by the GPS system can also be displayed alongside any other measurement channels in realtime displays. The latitude, longitude, altitude and velocity data is stored with with all the other sensor data captured by the P8000 system and is available to view and process in the resulting datasets. These signals can then be used to classify or select data for further analysis. For example you could choose to process data when the vehicle is on a particular road or a particular section of the track, or if you find an unusual event use the GPS data to give a position and time or the event.
Sometimes we are asked about the differences between an acoustic camera and a sound intensity probe and which of the two is better for a particular application. There is no straightforward answer as they are quite different pieces of equipment, used for measuring different things. An acoustic camera is a tool used to locate and analyse sound sources, usually both steadystate and dynamic phenomena. The intensity probe is used to find the sound intensity at a particular position, usually a steadystate phenomena.
Prosig have welcomed 2010 with the official launch of their PROLOG data acquisition controller.
PROLOG is a controller that will allow remote, unattended or standalone operation of a P8000 system. In normal operation a P8000 data acquisition system is connected to a laptop or PC and data is stored, in real-time, on the computers hard drive via the USB 2.0 interface. This configuration provides a robust, high speed data capture environment. However, there are situations where it is not practical to keep the laptop connected. In some cases the environment may be suitable for the P8000 unit, but not for some of the more fragile components in a laptop. In other situations it may be desirable to have the measurement system in one location, whilst the operator may be positioned some distance away. The PROLOG unit is designed to address both of these requirements.
IBERDROLA has launched a renewal plan for the existing condition monitoring systems in their plants in Spain. This plan will be implemented gradually and PROSIG was selected to install their PROTOR Vibration Condition Monitoring System in three IBERDROLA power stations. The contract was awarded to PROSIG in partnership with Aries Ingeniería y Sistemas, who are PROSIG’s representative in Spain.
The annual UK Human Response to Vibration Conference will be held this year at The Institute of Naval Medicine, Alverstoke, Gosport, UK and will run from 6-8 September 2010. The conference provides a forum for exchange of information, dissemination of research findings and an opportunity to be updated in current issues related to human responses to vibration. Presented papers cover all aspects of hand-transmitted vibration, whole-body vibration and motion sickness.
An investigation was made of a sample of automotive components where some were exhibiting a high frequency “tick” or rattle during each operating cycle. This feature could be heard above the normal operating noise. The problem this posed was to measure and analyze components in an objective fashion and classify components as “good” or “bad”.
It sometimes occurs that signals are captured with A-weighting applied to the data by the acquisition device. This can be a problem if, for example, you wish to use the data in a hearing test or to use it for a structural vibration analysis. Now, A-weighting allegedly mimics what the ear does to a signal. If we play back an A weighted sound then we perceive a double A-weighted signal which is clearly not intended. When doing structural work it is usually the lower frequencies, say 2kHz or less, that is generally required. A-weighting seriously attenuates the low frequencies and also applies gain above 1kHz.
Prosig are delighted to have been invited to attend the 10th International Conference on Recent Advances in Structural Dynamics (RASD) to be held at The Institute of Sound and Vibration Research (ISVR) at Southampton University on 12th – 14th July 2010.
Prosig are pleased to announce the launch of two new tools to assist engineers in the measurement and analysis of noise and vibration issues in braking systems.
These days most people collecting engineering and scientific data digitally have heard of and know of the implications of the sample rate and the highest observable frequency in order to avoid aliasing. For those people who are perhaps unfamiliar with the phenomenon of aliasing then an Appendix is included below which illustrates the phenomenon.
Prosig have recently been awarded ISO 9001 certification. The ISO 9001 certification process recognizes that Prosig’s design, development, manufacturing and service organizations have met and comply with a strict quality standard.
Ever been lying on the beach and begun to wonder about the state of your LP turbines? Or out on business and anxious to know if that troublesome exciter bearing has settled down? Well with a 
This note is based on a real requirement presented to Prosig by a prospective user. It’s the sort of challenge that we relish. This case is a great example of a real-world signal processing requirement and also great test of some of the unique features of 
On 2nd May we reached the 10 year anniversary of the removal of SA from the NAVSTAR GPS system. For those of you not familiar with SA or Selective Availability it was the switching off of this option that made possible the explosive growth we have seen in automotive and personal GPS devices. For those that are interested, the image is of an early Rockwell military GPS unit. As I have seen commented elsewhere, this was described as “handheld”, but you wouldn’t want to hold one for too long!
If you’re a fan of Twitter or Facebook there’s a new way to keep up to date with the latest Prosig articles on the Prosig Noise & Vibration Blog. We now have a Twitter and Facebook page! Both Twitter and Facebook lend themselves to different ways of distributing news, images and so on. So as well material from this blog there will be some items that will be unique to both our Twitter & Facebook feeds. Twitter, for example, is ideal for posting more links to interesting noise & vibration stories that we find. On the other hand, Facebook is great for sharing photos and videos. So don’t miss out – follow 
Research at Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) could lead to the replacement of mechanical compressors in refrigerators and air conditioners. The new technology could lead to a threefold increase in the efficiency of these devices. The principle is quite simple – thermoacoustic compressors work in the same way as traditional mechanical compressors. They compress or expand gases with high-intensity sound waves. Compressing gases generates heat, while letting the gases expand cools things off.
As you may know Prosig have recently released a 
Road noise (the noise produced by the interaction of tires and road surface) is in many circumstances the dominant noise experienced by vehicle occupants. The requirements for producing quieter roads and tires need to be balanced with the need to ensure that safety is not compromised. For example, a very smooth road surface provides the quietest ride, but this would provide little friction and therefore would provide very poor braking performance. The origin and nature of the sound produced by road/tire interaction is extremely complex.
The V7.0 release of 
Sometimes we are asked about the differences between an acoustic camera and a sound intensity probe and which of the two is better for a particular application. There is no straightforward answer as they are quite different pieces of equipment, used for measuring different things. An acoustic camera is a tool used to locate and analyse sound sources, usually both steadystate and dynamic phenomena. The intensity probe is used to find the sound intensity at a particular position, usually a steadystate phenomena.
