Gone are the days when accelerometers prevailed as vibration analysis techniques to detect and evaluate electromechanical device conditions.
The conventional vibration testing method was useful to understand the vibration signals in the components and machinery that gave insights into how the asset performed.
But, vibration motion magnification has brought a refined process for the regular analysis of equipment, troubleshooting, and timely maintenance.
This blog throws light on everything about vibration motion visualization, its significance, and how it works.
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What is Vibration Motion Magnification?
Magnification is simply a process that helps you analyze the vibrations of the machine through the visual aspect of modern technology.
For instance, think about using a magnifying glass to get a detailed view of something your naked eyes can’t see.
Through the magnification of vibration technique, you can use image and video processing methods to understand the subtle motion and vibrations of the machine.
You need the best technology to detect and analyze these tiny movements of equipment.
Many conditions like imbalance, misalignment, loosening, or cracking of the components can contribute to these undesirable vibrations.
Such repeated movements eventually impact the way the equipment works and end up in catastrophic failure.
The advent of motion magnification software paved the way for the cost-effective method that lets you analyze and fix the vibration effects of the equipment.
How does Advanced Vibration Visualization Function?
Vibration motion magnification utilizes a patented camera and dedicated software to feed the camera pixel view into the sensors.
This digital technology can be used to analyze and record machine vibration with accurate measurements with high-speed video analysis.
Through video processing algorithms, you can easily identify the tiny motions and help users to observe them using the naked eye.
The vibration visualization gives users a holistic picture of the core faults in industry equipment and machinery.
Advantages of the Motion Amplification Approach
Compared to the traditional vibration analysis technique, the modern motion amplification approach serves industries with various advantages as follows:
- Effectively captures the complex behavior
The complex situations required multiple accelerometers to conduct in-depth vibration analysis and gather the necessary data.
However, motion magnification uses the pixels within the digital images as the accelerometers.
These don’t need an additional data acquisition system configuration or physical accelerometers.
- Get rid of multiple sensors
The accelerometers created a growing concern among analysts since they remained unaware of the number of accelerometers needed, the ways to gain better data with better accelerometer placements, etc. until the data processing began.
On the contrary, motion amplification is not a concern since you’ve got pixels to act as virtual accelerometers, and monitors the low-frequency vibrations efficiently.
- Least downtime involved
Accelerometer installation is a time-consuming task, and the machine needs to be shut down completely before the installation.
However, motion amplification uses a non-contact technique with nothing attached to the machine, and no downtime involved, thereby saving costs.
- Safe and secure process
Appointing a technician to install the sensors is a conventional technique that causes problems with moving components, temperature fluctuations, etc.
But the advanced approach makes little to zero direct interaction with machinery which makes it safe to operate.
- Easy-to-share results
In the conventional vibration analysis technique, the graphs and charts don’t undergo an expert interpretation.
You can witness a considerable gap between what the analyst observes and what it reports to the people, which affects the decisions the data makes.
On the other side, the amplified footage that motion magnification technology captures and processes narrows down this gap.
While we need an expert to perform data processing and result analysis, technology makes it easier for everybody to analyze them.
- Availability of more information
Accelerometers capture only data at the points where they remain connected.
On the other hand, motion magnification has million data points, which capture multiple vibration points.
They also provide motion-magnified videos, motion maps & vectors, data on rotating shafts, relative phase analysis, vibration results like waveform graphs, and classical spectrum analysis.
You may also like to read:
- How to Consider Machine Alignment to Avoid Equipment Failures
- What Is Reliability Centered Maintenance? A Simple Guide
- Frequent Causes Of Piping Vibration And Their Repercussions On Piping Systems
What do you Measure with Vibration Visualizations?
Vibration motion amplification software lets you understand the extent of inaccurate vibrations in a machine. It measures many physical aspects that affect the structural assets, such as:
Movement and Vibration
An oscillating object vibrates, and the motion magnification with high-speed cameras makes each pixel a dedicated sensor, generating multiple data points.
Analyzing these data points helps you evaluate the vibrations, velocity, and time waveforms of the structure.
The analysis of vibration helps to stay away from the noise, equipment damage, energy consumption, and insecure working ecosystems.
Deflection
Deflection is hard to see with the naked eye– it is a distance or an angle up to which an object tilts from its original position.
Analysis of deflections can be carried out with the Operating Deflection Shape (ODS) technique.
The vibration visualization uses video to develop the real-time visualization of motion and deflections.
Displacement
The distance up to which a component moves from the exact location is known as displacement, which could cause loosening or imbalance in the machine.
Displacement decreases with the increased vibration frequencies, hence accelerometers or eddy current probes can’t measure it well.
But, motion magnification technology has precise visual capabilities that detect the displacement easily.
How does Ocean Perform Vibration Magnification?
A quick, easier, and streamlined diagnosis of equipment vibrations can help you to detect the issues and explore the root causes accurately.
It relieves the engineers from the risk of maintenance and shows them the way to find causes, reduce the maintenance expenses, lower the resolution time, and bring down the plant downtime to a great extent.
Ocean operates on motion magnification with hardware and software solutions combined to help you analyze:
- Presence of any misalignments, if they exist;
- Understand vibration anomalies that an unbalanced rotor brings;
- Find the journal defects and issues with anti-friction bearings;
- Perform spare parts logistics management;
- Isolation of the faulty machine parts;
- Take care of maintenance scheduling;
- Analyze the issues with the gear;
- Identify and resolve the electrical issues due to DC & AC motors;
- Diagnose the root causes behind the failure of equipment.
Bottom Line
Motion amplification is a game-changer in the field of vibration analysis, and offers numerous benefits over conventional vibration measurement techniques.
This is a powerful tool that combines the features of condition monitoring, troubleshooting, and predictive maintenance strategies to incorporate an easy-to-understand vibration visualization.
Ocean uses the expertise and knowledge in the field to develop constructive collaboration with customers to deliver the most innovative vibration magnification services to the industries such as Oil & Gas, Power, and Petrochemicals, to name a few.