Understanding Phase Measurements
When performing frequency analysis of vibration data for any application the resultant spectrum has both amplitude and phase components, therefore the phase component represents half of the information available and…
Using Your VCM To Monitor Auxiliary Equipment
The use of a vibration condition monitoring system for monitoring vibration from large rotating machines fitted with fluid-filled journal bearings such as steam or gas turbines is well understood. Vibration from these components generally falls within the main harmonics or orders of the shaft rotational speed such as 1st, 2nd 3rd or 4th harmonic. Some energy may also exist below the 1st order, called the sub-synchronous component. Most energy exists below 1KHz and so standard displacement probes or velocity transducers are generally fitted. The Prosig PROTOR system collects this data in amplitude and phase form, relative to a ‘once-per-revolution’ phase reference signal, as standard and allows data to be displayed in real-time as mimic diagrams, trend plots, orbit and vector displays.
Average Waterfalls Or Average Orders?
[latexpage]One would expect that averaging waterfalls and then extracting orders would give the same result as extracting orders from individual waterfalls and then averaging them. This is not the case.
What Is A Fourier Transform?
A Fourier Transform 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 illustration, we will look at Fourier analysing the sum of the two sine waves shown below. The resultant summed signal is shown in the third graph.
(more…)
How Do I Downsample Data?
Sometimes we have digitised data at a much higher rate than we need. How can we downsample data? If I wanted to say halve the sample rate can I just throw away every other data point?
The answer is NO, except in pathological conditions where you know that there is no frequency content above the new Nyquist frequency.
