Lubricating oil debris monitoring system
AssigneeTechnical Development Company
InventorsJames H. Magee, Thomas E. Tauber
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An electromagnetic system is provided to capture ferrous particles in a circulating fluid medium and provide analog and digital data which relate both to the mass of any significant individual particles captured and the total mass of such particles accumulated in a given time for subsequent retrieval. A periodic self checking capability is also included to determine if the system is functioning normally.
Claims13
An apparatus for monitoring the quantity of ferrous particulate debris in oil and hydraulic fluid systems comprising:
- a magnetic sensor including a magnetic field to attract and capture a plurality of ferrous particles and a pulse generating means which generates a pulse to signal the capture and mass of said particles;
- a preamplifier to amplify said pulses operatively connected to said sensor;
- signal conditioning means to evaluate said amplified pulses and provide output signals which are a function of the mass of said particles, operatively connected to said preamplifier;
- and
- display means operatively connected to said conditioning means to provide an audio/visual output of said proportionate signals.
The method of detecting and analyzing ferrous particles in a circulating lubricating oil system comprising:
- capturing the particles by a magnet;
- generating pulses in a coupled concentric coil around said magnet as said paricles are drawn towards a capture plate on top of said magnet;
- amplifying said pulses, measuring their amplitude and discriminating said pulses to only pass signals from said particles which are indicative of abnormal wear;
- triggering an alarm when a mass of any given particles is over a preset limit;
- converting the analog amplitudes of said discriminated pulses to equivalent digital values, and accumulating said digital values to provide a digital signal equal to the total mass of abnormal particles which have been captured;
- and
- displaying the value of said total mass of abnormal particles to an operator for corrective action if necessary.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.