Performance monitoring system for disc cutter of tunnel boring machine

A performance monitoring system for a disc cutter of a tunnel boring machine (TBM), comprising:

• an optical transceiver, a temperature sensor, a disc cutter body, a shaft assembly and an isolation boss, wherein the shaft assembly comprises a shaft main body and a bearing spacer located on the shaft main body;
• a rotating mechanism arranged in a space between the isolation boss and the bearing spacer;
• wherein the rotating mechanism comprises:
• a rotator and a T-shaped extension support located between the bearing spacer and the rotator;
• a plurality of bearing retainers having roller bearings arranged on two sides of the T-shaped extension support;
• a ring-shaped grating strip arranged on a side part of the rotator close to the T-shaped extension support;
• wherein the isolation boss is arranged on an other side part of the rotator away from the shaft assembly;
• wherein the isolation boss is linked with the rotator;
• and
• a sealing assembly is arranged between the T-shaped extension support and the rotator at bilateral sides of the rotator;
• a bearing spacer hole is formed in the bearing spacer and has transmitting and receiving optical fibers connected with the optical transceiver and a probe of the temperature sensor arranged therein;
• the system configured such that when the disc cutter body rotates the grating strip is driven to rotate by the isolation boss to chop a light beam emitted from the optical fibers embedded in the T-shaped extension support based on relative motion between the bearing spacer and the isolation boss;
• the system configured such that the light beam is reflected back to the optical fibers by a non-hollowed portion of the grating strip and then transmitted to the optical transceiver, to acquire a pulsed signal carrying a positioning feature, and in turn obtain a rotating speed, a rotating direction, an angular acceleration and a vibration frequency of the disc cutter.