A Novel Proximity Probe Unaffected by Shaft Electromagnetic Properties

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Abstract
Non-contact eddy-current displacement transducers, or proximity probes as they are popularly known, have always played an important role in monitoring the condition of a variety of machines, and will remain doing so for years to come. Although immensely useful for detecting a wide range of machine faults by simply monitoring the shaft position and vibration, there are definite limitations to the traditional probe systems due to the aging technology. Some of these problems are the probe driver sensitivity to the probe coil parameters, the shaft’s electromagnetic properties, and the capacitance of the cable it is attached to. Since each probe driver has to be individually calibrated to a specific probe tip diameter, a specific kind of shaft material and a specific cable length, it is easy to imagine that stocking such dedicated drivers can be expensive for large applications. But what is even more costly than this is the risk of reduced monitoring reliability due to an incorrectly selected or calibrated driver. As a result of this, a new proximity probe system recently has been designed and tested that uses a simple yet innovative principle that makes it insensitive to shaft material electromagnetic properties, can accommodate different cable lengths without recalibration, and yet still can fulfil all the installation, application, and performance expectations of a traditional probe.
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