Identification of Vibration Events in Rotating Blades Using a Fiber Optical Tip Timing Sensor

The blade tip timing (BTT) technique has been widely used in rotation machinery for non-contact blade vibration measurements. As BTT data is under-sampled, it requires complicated algorithms to reconstruct vibration parameters. Before reconstructing the vibration parameters, the right data segment should first be extracted from the massive volumes of BTT data that include noise from blade vibration events. This step requires manual intervention, is highly dependent on the skill of the operator, and has also made it difficult to automate BTT technique applications. This article proposes an included angle distribution (IAD) correlation method between adjacent revolutions to identify blade vibration events automatically in real time. All included angles of the rotor between any two adjacent blades were accurately detected by only one fiber optical tip timing sensor. Three formulas for calculating IAD correlation were then proposed to identify three types of blade vibration events: the blades’ overall vibrations, vibration of the adjacent two blades, and vibration of a specific blade. Further, the IAD correlation method was optimized in the calculating process to reduce computation load when identifying every blade’s vibration events. The presented IAD correlation method could be used for embedded, real-time, and automatic processing applications. Experimental results showed that the proposed method could identify all vibration events in rotating blades, even small events which may be wrongly identified by skillful operators.