AECL has recently invested in a bespoke vibration monitoring system. The system is based around a Daqbook 2005 Data acquisition system and currently has the capability to monitor 12 channels simultaneously (although this can be expanded in the future).
The system generally uses geophones for sensing vibration, as these are more robust and allow longer cable lengths than accelerometers. The electrical output of the geophones is proportional to velocity, but this can easily be converted to acceleration or displacement.
The output of the geophones is digitised and can be processed in either real-time or the signal can be stored for later analysis. The system is highly flexible and can be used to determine virtually any vibration parameter including acceleration, velocity, displacement, Peak Particle Velocity (PPV), Vibration Dose Value (VDV), rms values, maximum values, octave, 1/3-octave and narrow band values.
