Contact
Login Contact

September 23, 2024

Revolutionizing T&M with Motion Amplification®

Sean Hollands

I am super excited to announce I’ve joined RDI Technologies as their Chief Commercialization Officer. RDI’s disruptive technology is poised to transform how we measure vibration and motion. We now have the capability to perform instantaneous, real-time, full-field vibration measurements on complete systems, including small accessory hoses. With just a few seconds of video, we can capture the vibration response and accurately identify motion across all frequencies. This is truly a game-changer.

When you first encounter certain technologies, they compel you to dig deeper, invest time, explore, or simply understand them better. In the industrial measurement realm, however, few new technologies have evoked this kind of response. After spending 30 years in NVH doing things the hard way, I recently came across RDI Technologies’ Motion Amplification® in action and was impressed. They have developed a disruptive technology that will make engineering tasks faster and easier than ever.

While initially developed and released within the predictive maintenance (PDM) space—where the insight it provides into assets is faster, more visual, and significantly more effective for troubleshooting—Motion Amplification has applications beyond PDM. What sets it apart in the PDM field is that the technology is completely non-contact, covers entire objects, provides real-time data and visualizations, and is incredibly easy to interpret. It is truly a game-changer.

These same capabilities have the potential to revolutionize the physical measurement space as well. Noise, vibration, and harshness (NVH) analysis has traditionally required years of study, expensive equipment, takes a lot of time to perform, and often yields results that are difficult to interpret. With Motion Amplification, sources of buzzes, squeaks, and rattles can be pinpointed in minutes. Gone are the days when you had to show management a frequency response chart to highlight what needed to be done to resolve the NVH concern.  

Here is a quick video that demonstrates how easy Motion Amplification results are to understand:

Unlike conventional techniques, this process simply involves setting up an RDI camera inside the car and recording. No need for numerous sensors, complex wiring, or constructing a CAE model to perform the measurement.

Motion Amplification isn’t limited to the automotive sector, either. For a straightforward demonstration of its power, take a look at how it visualizes the resonance of a simple wine glass. We all recognize the sound and know that when we circle a wet finger on a glass that it can sing and make noise, but how many people outside of the engineering world understand why and exactly what the glass is doing? Here is a quick video that shows how the wine glass makes noise:

Conventional measurement techniques struggle here because attaching sensors would mass-load the glass, altering its resonance. RDI Technologies’ non-contact approach eliminates this issue.

Another unique advantage of Motion Amplification is its ability to measure things previously considered impossible. For example, although many measurements have been performed on gas turbines, few can quantify the motion of cables and accessories bolted onto the turbine. Using an RDI camera and Motion Amplification, we can easily observe the motion of the engine and the resonance of the attached components. Classically cables, pipes and other accessories attached to engines couldn’t be measured due to mass loading or the need for a huge array of sensors, but since the camera is fundamentally a huge array of sensors RDI is able to resolve motion on everything attached to the engine.  This is invaluable for design verification and mitigating liability.

The technology is also scalable for larger targets. Traditional Ground Vibration Tests (GVT) require days, hundreds of accelerometers, and multiple people to perform. In just minutes, the RDI system can capture data showing an aircraft’s wing deflection and the operational response of much of the body.

The speed and capability of the RDI system are unmatched, and the visual representation it provides is both intuitive and clear. This is a technology that will fundamentally change how we approach measurements. I’m thrilled to be part of RDI. – Sean Hollands

 

Contact Us to Learn More

 

 

 

 

LATEST ARTICLES

Return to Blog

GET IN TOUCH

GET IN TOUCH.

Want to learn more? For more information or a quote on our products or services, please contact us.

GET IN Touch