An Ultrasensitive Microsensor Based on Impedance Analysis for Oil Condition Monitoring

Abstract

Oil condition monitoring is an important way to achieve mechanical equipment health assessment, condition early warning, fault diagnosis, and intelligent maintenance. A microsensor integrated with inductance-resistance and capacitance sensing units is presented, which can comprehensively detect metal debris, air bubbles, and moisture in oil based on impedance analysis. The inductance-resistance sensing unit not only detects traditional inductance parameter, but also proposes a resistance detection method based on coil to further improve the detection sensitivity for nonferromagnetic metal debris. The capacitance sensing unit can detect air bubbles, and a new moisture measurement method is also proposed. Based on the signal characteristics of inductance, resistance and capacitance detection results, the microsensor can effectively distinguish 16–500 <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">μ</i> m iron debris, 60–500 <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">μ</i> m copper debris, >170 <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">μ</i> m air bubbles and moisture in oil. The ultrasensitive microsensor can obtain more oil status information, which has important value and wide engineering application prospect for modern fault diagnosis and prediction theory based on information fusion.