Noise & Vibration Analysis: Back To Basics

Sometimes it doesn’t hurt to revisit some of the basic building blocks that form the foundation of what we do. And so we have gathered together a few of our most popular past articles that deal with the fundamental aspects of measuring and analysing noise and vibration data. Please leave a comment if you have a favourite. Or, if you think there is a topic we could cover in future posts, then let us know. The links to the articles start right under the line below, so, let’s go ‘back to basics’…

Notes On Fourier Analysishttps://blog.prosig.com/2003/07/29/notes-on-fourier-analysis/Fourier analysis takes a signal and represents it either as a series of cosines (real part) and sines (imaginary part) or as a cosine with phase (modulus and phase form). As an…

Standard Octave Bandshttps://blog.prosig.com/2006/02/17/standard-octave-bands/The “standard” centre frequencies for 1/3 octave bands are based upon the Preferred Numbers. These date from the 19th century when Col. Charles Renard (1849–1905) was given the…

What Is Resonance?https://blog.prosig.com/2007/05/23/what-is-resonance/A resonance occurs when a structure or material naturally oscillates at a high amplitude at a specific frequency. This frequency is known as a structural resonant frequency.…

A, B & C Weightinghttps://blog.prosig.com/2001/06/06/a-b-c-weighting/Some devices, particularly digital tape recorders, apply A-weighting to all their data in order to achieve acceptable data compression. This is fine unless you want to analyse…

How To Analyze Noise & Vibration In Rotating Machineshttps://blog.prosig.com/2011/08/09/how-to-measure-noise-vibration-in-rotating-machines/In this article we will look at the basic steps behind a simple rotating machinery study. We won’t look in great detail at some of the techniques involved – we deal with these…

How Do I Do Hammer Impact Tests And Modal Testing?https://blog.prosig.com/2013/02/11/what-is-hammer-impact-testing/This is often also known as Modal Testing. It is a method of testing that allows us to calculate the natural frequencies (modes), modal masses, modal damping ratios and mode…

What is Synchronous (Angular) Sampling?https://blog.prosig.com/2011/11/09/what-is-synchronous-angular-sampling/The term synchronous data is usually applied to vibration or acoustic data that is captured from an item of rotating equipment at regularly spaced angle intervals as distinct…

Frequency, Hertz & Ordershttps://blog.prosig.com/2002/02/03/frequency-hertz-orders/The most common form of digitising data is to use a regular time based method. That is data is sampled at a constant rate specified as a number of samples/second. The…

What are dB? What is noise floor? What is Dynamic Range?https://blog.prosig.com/2008/04/14/what-is-db-noise-floor-dynamic-range/Most engineers are probably familiar with or have come across the decibel or dB as a unit of measurement. Its most common use is in the field of acoustics where it is used to…

Understanding Filter Characteristicshttps://blog.prosig.com/2011/10/04/understanding-filter-characteristics/Recently when discussing with an engineering student the characteristics of filters, it became clear that some confusion exists around this subject area. This note attempts to…

The articles above were contributed by…

Dr Colin Mercer (42)

Dr Colin Mercer was formerly at the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research (ISVR), University of Southampton where he founded the Data Analysis Centre. He then went on to found Prosig in 1977. Colin retired as Chief Signal Processing Analyst at Prosig in December 2016. He is a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the British Computer Society.

Chris Mason (73)

My passion for technology and innovation began as a teenager with Sinclair ZX80's, Commodore PETs & Apple ]['s. This became a career in software development, product development, team leadership, web development, and marketing. Now I am a General Manager responsible for growth, innovation, strategy & leadership. I gained an HND in Maths, Stats & Computing from Portsmouth Polytechnic in 1983 and completed an MBA at the University of Winchester in 2019 where I focused on innovation and strategy.

James Wren (33)

James Wren was Sales & Marketing Manager for Prosig Ltd until 2019. James graduated from Portsmouth University in 2001, with a Masters degree in Electronic Engineering. He is a Chartered Engineer and a registered Eur Ing. He has been involved with motorsport from a very early age with a special interest in data acquisition. James is a founder member of the Dalmeny Racing team.

Adrian Lincoln (8)

Adrian Lincoln is Signal Processing Technology Manager at Prosig Ltd and has responsibilities for signal processing applications, training and consultancy. He was formerly a Research Fellow at the Institute of Sound & Vibration Research (ISVR) at Southampton University. He is a Chartered Engineer and member of the British Computer Society and Institute of Mechanical Engineers.

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Chris Mason

General Manager at Prosig

My passion for technology and innovation began as a teenager with Sinclair ZX80's, Commodore PETs & Apple ]['s. This became a career in software development, product development, team leadership, web development, and marketing. Now I am a General Manager responsible for growth, innovation, strategy & leadership. I gained an HND in Maths, Stats & Computing from Portsmouth Polytechnic in 1983 and completed an MBA at the University of Winchester in 2019 where I focused on innovation and strategy.

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