Gating in SKF @ptitude Observer

In some applications, it is important to collect vibration data only at a specific operating condition of the machine. This way of collecting vibration measurements is called "Gating" and is used to control when to take the vibration measurements on variable speed machines like paper machines, rolling mills, shovels, haul trucks and draglines.

This technique makes sure that the data is collected as close as possible at a "fixed" running speed of the machine.  To decide when to take the measurement, it is important to know the speed profile of the machine.  The ideal situation to collect data is at a constant speed of the machine.

On variable speed machinery, an allowed variation of the rotational speed has to be set in SKF @ptitude Observer, when collecting data, to avoid collecting data during acceleration and deceleration of the machine. Too much variation of the rotational speed will cause a “smear out phenomena” in the frequency amplitude reading.  This application note contains the steps for proper software configuration and provides a list of definitions for the settings called out in the procedure.