When to Use an Accelerometer
As a general statement, there are two reasons for using accelerometers:
- Accelerometers are used when you are monitoring on structures or you are interested in the impact of vibration on structures and/or specific pieces of sensitive equipment. The reason is simply that structural engineers think in terms of acceleration and their calculations of structural impact are based on acceleration.
- Accelerometers are used to measure Vibration Dose Values (VDV) – i.e. a measure of human response to long-term vibration.
Texcel offers both types of accelerometer.
Accelerometers are not normally utilized in a blasting environment.
The Texcel triaxial or uniaxial accelerometers for structures can report 2 different units of acceleration:
- Acceleration (g) – 1g is the acceleration due to gravity (it does vary slightly depending upon where you are geographically)
- Acceleration (m/s2) – 1g is about 9.8 m/s2.
Some people like to use the unit of g and others feel more comfortable in m/s2 – there is no right or wrong here and you can convert from one to the other. The decision on which units to use is usually determined by the specifications of the appropriate authority or of the manufacturer of the equipment being monitored.
Texcel Triaxial and Uniaxial Accelerometer Types
Texcel can provide two separate types of triaxial/uniaxial accelerometer as listed below:
- Low Level (ACC L) for measuring low levels of acceleration
- High Level (ACC H) for measuring high levels of acceleration
Internally they are both based on a high-quality PCB ICP accelerometer.
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Texcel Accelerometer Ranges
These Texcel sensors are wide bandwidth accelerometers where the bandwidth is set by the sample rate in the monitor’s settings – they have these features:
- Results are in units of m/s2 or g
- Sensor is omni-directional and can be mounted in any orientation
- Bandwidth from 0.4 Hz to 30 % of the sample rate in the settings in your ETM (or GTM)
- 4 Range Selections are available in the settings
Ranges for the available Sensors:
Note: actual ranges will vary slightly from the nominal ranges shown due to calibrated sensitivities. See below for detailed specifications.
Texcel Triaxial VDV Sensor
This sensor is a low range triaxial accelerometer that reports in units of m/s2 in compliance with the NSW EPA “Assessing Vibration: a technical guideline” of February 2006 and BS 6472: 1992. The signals are weighted by frequency so that the human response to vibration can be correctly measured. The sensor is band limited from 0.4 Hz to 100 Hz as required by the above standards.
Details of how to install and use these sensors on your Texcel monitor are available in separate Technical Bulletins.
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