Measurement Setup

The objective of the experimental setup is to study the dynamic behavior of the rotor system and to validate the simulation model outlined in Chapter 5. The focus of interest lies on the movement of the core bit relative to the machine. To study this, two different experimental setups have been used during the course of the underlying work. At first, an additional rig has been attached to the machine, which is able to support displacement sensors to measure the relative movement of the core bit during hand-held operation. Of special interest is the case, when the clamping force in the chuck is exceeded by either increasing the imbalance of the core bit or by increasing the tumble angle of the sleeve. If at the same time the clamping force is reduced, the core bit will tilt inside of the chuck, resulting in large displacement amplitudes. In fact, the amplitudes turned out to be so large, that a human operator can no longer safely hold the tool. Therefore, another experimental setup has been developed in which the machine is held by a stand. In the following, the two different setups will be described.

4 Experimental Setup

4.1.1 Hand-held with Additional Sensor Support Rig

Figure 4.1 shows the measurement setup with the additional rig to support the displacement sensors for the core bit. The rig consists mainly of two tubes that are connected with a bridge at their machine-sided end. To attach the rig to the machine, the telescopic bars supporting the water collector, which can be seen in Figure 3.1, are removed. The former interface of the telescopic bars allows for a very rigid connection with the machine. To further stiffen the rig, the bridge is attached with additional bars to rigid screw connections at the housing.

The rig is designed in such a way, that its first local mode is located in a frequency range that is well above the maximal rotational frequency of both the tumble sleeve and the drive shaft. As will be shown later, the rig can be considered as almost rigid in respect to the housing.

shaft: front sleeve: front rpm sleeve: rear shaft: rear sleeve

core bit: front rpm shaft

3D accelerometers core bit: rear

sensor support rig

“tool 3”

Figure 4.1: Measurement setup with additional rig for hand-held operation

Four triangulation lasers measure the displacement of the core bit relative to the rig, or to the housing, respectively. The lasers are mounted on two plates that are attached to the tubes of the rig and that can be moved alongside the tubes. The two plates carry two lasers each, one for the vertical x-direction and one for the horizontal y-direction. This allows one to track at two axial positions the motion of the core bit in the two directions perpendicular to its spinning axis. However, the use of a single-spot laser to track the motion of an object with a curved surface creates a certain measurement error: A movement of the object that is lateral to the measurement direction of the laser wrongfully creates a signal, indicating that there is also a movement in the direction of the laser, as shown in Figure 4.2a. The dimension of the error depends on the curvature of the object and the amount of lateral movement.

In the underlying work, a core bit of the largest possible diameter is used to minimize the

4.1 Measurement Setup

error. Theoretically, a laser line fork light barrier would be a better sensor concept. The working principle is shown in Figure 4.2b; examples for its use on rotor systems can be found in [85, 130]. In the current case, the necessary sensor hardware is too bulky and too heavy to mount it on the rig for hand-held operation. The selected triangulation lasers are more than ten times lighter, which is the main reason they have been selected for the measurement task. Another reason is budget limitations, as the triangulation lasers are significantly less costly.

triangulation laser

measurementdirection

(a) error when using a single-spot laser

Laser Line Fork Light Barrier

Laser Receiver Laser Emitter

measurementdirection

(b) alternative sensor concept Figure 4.2: Measuring the lateral movement of a curved object

For measuring the displacement of the shaft and the tumble sleeve, basically the same concept as for the core bit is used, which means spanning a plane perpendicular to the axis of rotation at two different axial positions with two sensors each. With the sole difference that here inductive displacement sensors are applied instead of triangulation lasers. Since the shaft rotates inside the hollow tumble sleeve, it is accessible only at its ends. Figure 4.3 shows the position of the inductive sensors. The “front” side of the shaft is measured at the housing of the slip clutch. The movement at the “rear” end is tracked at the swivel of the water intake.

Therefore parts of the swivel that rotate with the shaft are replaced with a steel cylinder to provide a good signal. The tumble sleeve is accessible only within a short range of its total length at positions that are close to the bearings. For both the shaft and the sleeve, the machine design does not allow the sensor to be oriented parallel to the coordinate axes, as in the case of the triangulation lasers. Instead, the inductive sensors are mounted under an angle of 45 degrees with respect to the xz-plane.

In preparation of the measurement setup, a modal analysis revealed that, within the fre-quency range of the rotational speed, the housing of the machine has no structural modes and mainly performs a rigid body motion. Therefore it is possible to measure the movement of the machine with acceptable precision by using accelerometers. Six triaxial accelerometers

4 Experimental Setup

shaft: front sleeve: front rpm sleeve: front shaft: rear sleeve

Figure 4.3: Position of the inductive displacement sensors

cover the movement of the housing, while another two triaxial sensors monitor the move-ment of the rig at the two mounting plates of the triangulation lasers. For modal testing at non-rotating condition, additional accelerometers are used on the core bit and on the chuck.

The rotational speed of the shaft and the tumble sleeve is recorded by the use of optical sensors in combination with striped tape, so-called “zebra tape”, which is wrapped around the rotating bodies. The major advantage of this measurement method, compared to an incremental encoder, is the ease of application on any part that is optically accessible. Also, there is virtually no weight added to the rotating parts and no extra space is needed. On the other hand, at the joint of the zebra tape there is always one stripe that is larger (or smaller) than the other stripes, which are evenly distributed. In the underlying work, the larger stripe is used to determine the rotor’s absolute angular position. However, the somewhat larger stripe also represents a discontinuity, which creates an artificial fluctuation in the signal of the rotational speed. Partly, this fluctuation can be averaged out with a post-processing algorithm, but not completely. While the tumble sleeve is accessible by drilling a hole in the housing, access to the shaft is more restricted. Therefore the rotational speed of the shaft is taken at the outer piece of the chuck, which rotates at the same speed as the shaft.

On the hardware side, data acquisition is done with a frontend of type SCADAS Lab from manufacturer LMS, using up to 60 measurement channels. The data is then post-processed and analyzed with LMS Test.Lab and Matlab.