Abstract
PurposeThe purpose of this study is to develop a cylindrical capacitive sensor that has the advantages of high resolution, small size and designability and can be easily installed on lubricant pipeline to monitor lubricant oil debris.Design/methodology/approachA theoretical model of the cylindrical capacitive sensor is presented to analyze several parameters’ effectiveness on the performance of sensor. Numerical simulations are then conducted to determine the optimal parameters for preliminary experiments. Experiments are finally carried out to demonstrate the detectability of developed capacitive sensors.FindingsIt is clear from experimental results that the developed capacitive sensor can monitor the debris in lubricant oil well, and the capacitance values increase almost linearly when the number and size of debris increase.Research limitations/implicationsThere is lot of further work to do to apply the presented method into the application. Especially, it is necessary to consider several factors’ influence on monitoring results. These factors include the flow rate of the lubricant oil, the temperature, the debris distribution and the vibration. Moreover, future work should consider the influence of the oil degradation to the capacitance change and other contaminations (e.g. water and dust).Practical implicationsThis work conducts a feasibility study on application of capacitive sensing principle for detecting debris in aero engine lubricant oil.Originality/valueThe novelty of the presented capacitance sensor can be summarized into two aspects. One is that the sensor structure is simple and characterized by two coaxial cylinders as electrodes, while conventional capacitive sensors are composed of two parallel plates as electrodes. The other is that sensing mechanism and physical model of the presented sensor is verified and validated by the simulation and experiment.
Highlights
IntroductionAs a core component, is directly related to the performance and safety of aircraft
Aircraft engine, as a core component, is directly related to the performance and safety of aircraft
Lubricant oil monitoring is an important part of aircraft engine health monitoring
Summary
As a core component, is directly related to the performance and safety of aircraft. The continuous flowing lubricant oil is used to reduce the temperature and transport the debris/particles produced by mechanical wear. The debris affects the performance of lubricant oil and indicates some states of the mechanical system in the engine. The wear particles in lubrication oil maintain a constant concentration and small size in normal working conditions; when abnormal wear occurs, the concentration and sizes of the particles increase and are distinct from normal particles (Mauntz et al, 2013). The detection of lubricant oil debris (size and concentration) is an important and effective method for fault diagnosis and life prediction of key components in engine. Several attempts have been made in the past decade to detect the conditions of lubricant oil. Laboratory (offline) and in situ (online) methods are both used in metal particle analysis. The offline approaches depend on skillful sampling, a diagnostic database and a long period; these include ferrography
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