Refrigeration compressor condition monitoring to improve reliability, employs piezoelectric transducer to detect ominous vibrations

摘要

The compressor is supervised using a monitoring unit (18). This determines its operational state from vibrations measured at its casing (16). the vibrations are monitored using e.g. a piezoelectric vibration transducer. The sensor detects incipient water hammer in the coolant. Audio/visual alarms are raised. Further monitoring functions are usefully added, e.g. to watch for excessively-low oil temperature during start-up.