History of Vibration Analysis used for Machinery Maintenance
The first vibration meters were introduced in the 1950s, and they measured the overall, or "broad band" level of machine vibration, either in peak-to-peak mils (thousandths of an inch) of vibratory displacement, or in inches per second (IPS) of vibration velocity. A little later, tunable analog filters were added to the meters in order to discriminate between different frequency components, and thus to produce a sort of vibration spectrum.
The 1970s brought forth the personal computer and the advent of digital signal processing that led to the FFT analyzer, and it made quick work of calculating a frequency spectrum from a recorded vibration signal. The first such analyzers were quite bulky, weighing as much as 75 pounds, and this made them more suited as laboratory instruments than portable units for field use.
The 1980s saw the exploitation of the microprocessor on a single silicon chip, and the battery-powered truly portable digital signal analyzer quickly followed this. It is this device, coupled with a computer program that stores the data and takes care of the logistics of vibration data collection that has revolutionized the application of vibration analysis to machinery diagnostics.
Azima DLI provides products and services for Predictive Maintenance including vibration analysis instruments, monitoring and diagnostic software, and consulting for CBM programs.
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