Around 4000 BC, vibrations gave rise to language, music, and musical instruments. In 132 AD, vibration theory inspired Zhang Heng to invent the seismograph. In 1946, American physicist Dr. Libby created the world's first atomic clock using the natural vibrations of cesium and ammonia atoms; this atomic clock remains the most advanced clock to this day. Vibration is ubiquitous in our world. The primary issue is how to avoid the harm caused by vibrations and utilize them to serve humanity.
Machine vibration is a very common phenomenon in industry. Machines vibrate during the process of converting input energy into useful work. However, abnormal vibration can affect the health of industrial equipment, such as reducing the precision and surface finish of machining, accelerating component fatigue and wear, and shortening the service life of machines and structures. Furthermore, vibration increases energy consumption, reduces machine efficiency, and sometimes causes significant deformation and damage, even leading to catastrophic accidents. According to reports from relevant organizations, outdated monitoring and maintenance technologies can reduce overall factory production capacity by 5% to 20%. With the advent of Industry 4.0, machine health monitoring has become a crucial topic requiring serious research in the industrial technology field. Analog Devices (ADI), a provider of high-performance analog technology, has recently shared its technical solutions for wireless CBM (Condition-Based Monitoring) as a key component of Industry 4.0 implementation at several events.
Wireless Status Monitoring Solution vs. Traditional CBM
In industry, machine vibration is unavoidable, and using vibration to observe machine health is a common monitoring method. Industry reports show that machine condition monitoring can help reduce maintenance costs by 12% annually and significantly increase machine availability to 92%. Condition-based maintenance can also reduce unexpected failures by approximately 25%; repair and maintenance time is reduced by almost half, and spare parts inventory can be reduced by 20%.
However, traditional vibration condition monitoring requires maintenance cycles, and the frequency of vibration monitoring increases towards the end of its lifespan, especially when personnel or assets are at risk. At this stage, the repetitive costs of using portable vibration monitoring devices gradually increase, becoming prohibitively high compared to maintenance costs. While special attention is necessary for critical assets, many other instruments cannot afford such repetitive costs. Furthermore, the main drawback of using handheld vibration probes in the past was the lack of repeatable measurements. Slight changes in probe position or angle produce inconsistent vibration profiles, making accurate time comparisons difficult. Another limitation is the inability to indicate vibration shifts in real time.
ADI's condition monitoring solutions based on products such as the ADcmXL3021 and ADXL1002 perfectly address these issues. By combining its MEMS vibration sensors with precision converters, linearity, isolation, and power technologies, these solutions provide high-quality machine health data to maximize machine uptime and improve efficiency. Industrial-grade MEMS accelerometers effectively meet stringent requirements for performance and reliability, offering significant advantages over traditional piezoelectric ceramic sensors in terms of DC characteristics, temperature drift, and cost.
The ADcmXL3021 module is a complete vibration detection system that utilizes ADI's award-winning MEMS sensor technology. Machine health data is transformed into real-time, actionable monitoring to prevent work interruptions. It combines high-performance vibration detection with multiple signal processing functions in a compact form factor, simplifying the development process of intelligent sensor nodes based on condition monitoring systems, improving safety and reducing costs.
Condition-based monitoring systems are an important component of preventative maintenance, and key performance indicators for their accelerometers are low noise and wide bandwidth. The ADcmXL3021 module features an ultra-low noise density (25 μg/√Hz) of MEMS accelerometers, supporting excellent resolution. Its wide bandwidth (DC to 10 kHz, 5% flatness) allows tracking of critical vibration characteristics across multiple machine platforms, improving productivity and reducing equipment maintenance by monitoring early indicators of mechanical fatigue and failure. It is suitable for a wide range of industrial equipment and transport vehicles.
By integrating with smartMesh wireless networks, status monitoring can be implemented seamlessly.
The unique value of industrial equipment condition monitoring is easily recognized by industrial enterprises, but its actual implementation is often fraught with difficulties—wiring and power supply in existing factory environments are challenging. Two years ago, Analog Devices (ADI) acquired Linear Technology, gaining not only high-performance power supply technology but also significantly expanding ADI's product line with Linear Technology's wireless sensor network technology—SmartMesh. In particular, the wireless mesh network can be installed without interrupting factory operations, easily retrofitting existing factories, which is crucial for CBM systems. Wireless nodes are not limited by existing space, can operate reliably in metal and concrete structures, and can send real-time readings to factory management software. This data can be used to quickly and accurately determine the operating status of industrial equipment.
By combining MEMS vibration detection with the ADI SmartMesh wireless connectivity network, real-time data is uploaded to a server via the SmartMesh wireless network. Frequency domain data is then computed and analyzed locally through a battery-powered, low-power design. SmartMesh also ensures more ubiquitous deployment of vibration detection. These fully integrated sensors, eliminating the need for refurbished wiring/infrastructure, not only detect performance changes more accurately and reliably but also significantly reduce upfront and recurring maintenance costs.
The image above shows Analog Devices' wireless condition monitoring solution based on the ADXL1002 MEMS accelerometer, which can deploy unbalanced shaft loaded motors and balanced shaft loaded motors. The solution collects vibration data from the ADXL1002, processes the raw data using the ADuCM4050, and sends the data to a PC via SmartMesh, thereby enabling wireless vibration monitoring of active motors. By reducing the size, the motor drives can be combined into a dual-axis drive.
This Python-based GUI visualizes acceleration data, displays network information, and accelerates time series, FFT, and summary data. Finally, by coupling the transformation with an embedded continuous monitoring system featuring cloud-based analytics, it can have a multiplier impact on information and expertise in the current field of device monitoring. More reliable and powerful sensor nodes implemented using MEMS methods facilitate real-time data monitoring and condition-based predictive maintenance.
Disclaimer: This article is a reprint. If it involves copyright issues, please contact us promptly for deletion (QQ: 2737591964). We apologize for any inconvenience.
