Marine condition monitoringAn operator of cruise liners in Europe and the Caribbean had a particular problem with excessive damage to part of the drive-train on one of their ships. The ship had a facility for recording raw data for later analysis whenever the vibration exceeded certain levels, but the customer recognised that they needed more detailed information while the ship was still at sea. Remote mobile fatigue monitoring systemHGL has worked with a major world-wide manufacturer of heavy plant machinery to develop a system for monitoring accumulated fatigue damage on vehicles. The system makes use of HGL's standard low-power, embedded Dragonfly acquisition system, together with a web application developed specifically to address this requirement. Emissions Measurement - Annual AuditsHGL Dynamics is a consultant to a major OEM of Industrial Gas Turbines. HGL’s specialist engineers were requested to carry out an audit on the emissions measurement equipment at their development & manufacturing testing facilities. To comply with internal testing standards, HGL was requested to design an audit inspection document. North African Pipeline Vibration ConsultancyHGL Dynamics was asked to investigate increased amplitudes of vibration within the second of three Power Turbine units of a Gas Compression System, and to assist in identifying the possible cause of this increased vibration for rectification. The turbine sets were located on a gas pipeline in North Africa, where the trend plots of the proximity probes show that the vibration levels have increased from 20 microns to 46 microns. This increase in amplitude had been seen over approximately a 15 hour period with a sharp increase over the last 6 hour period. It was also reported that excessive noise and rumble was coming from the PT coupling end area. Therefore the second unit was shut down pending further investigation. 128-channel noise measurement system installed in MarylandHGL has delivered and installed a 128-channel noise measurement system in Patuxent River, Maryland. The system consists of 16 Dragonfly modules. 12 of these units are standard units with IEPE signal conditioning for powering the microphones. The remaining four systems also have IEPE conditioning fitted, but also have GPS modules for precise synchronisation between units. 320-channel system installed in FranceHGL has supplied a 320-channel acquisition system for use with gas turbine development testing in Northern France. The system is operated from one control station, and provides integrated real-time signal display and warning/alarm information to 24 additional display screens. These screens are typically organised in pairs, so that each analyst watches two screens. 128-channel systems installed at IndianapolisHGL supplied a 128-channel acquisition system with embedded analysis and storage features for use with the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program. Initially, this system consisted of a single 128-channel acquisition unit and a single 4-screen HawkEye display system. After eighteen months of operation, the system was upgraded to 4 x 32-channel acquisition units and 4 distributed HawkEye units to provide increased real-time safety monitoring. 128-channel system installed at CincinnatiHGL supplied a 128-channel acquisition and real-time safety monitoring system for use in testing the F136 engine for the JSF program at Cincinnati, Ohio. This system consists of 4 32-channel Hawk acquisition units and 6 HawkEye real-time display units configured for two engineers to monitor three screens each. An overall control screen shows a summary view of alarm conditions which have occurred during the run, describing the peak amplitude observed, which mode was triggered, the engine running speed at which the peak occurred, and the duration for which the signal was above the alarm threshold. |