Helicopter gearbox vibration measurement with the robust laser interferometer

摘要

Epoch Engineering, Inc. (EEI) has developed the Robust Laser Interferometer (RLI) which is able to make high quality vibration measurements across a wide bandwidth and with a great dynamic range, continuously. Overall, the RLI is able to measure vibrations of lA (peak to peak) in the presence of vibrations of .1m (peak to peak). Bandwidth extends from fractional Hertz to 64 KHz and can be increased to 256 KHz. In this paper, EEI describes its successful effort to measure the vibrations of two helicopter (SH-60 and H-53E) main gearboxes undergoing full power testing on test stands. These measurements are compared to simultaneous accelerometer system measurements. The RLI measured vibrations in a line-of-sight, non-contact fashin with several advantages over the accelerometer system.