Laser Doppler Vibrometry for Structural Dynamic Characterization of Rotating Machinery

Laser Doppler Vibrometry (LDV) is a well established technique able to accurately measure vibration velocity of any kind of structure in remote, i.e. non-intrusive way, this allowing to overcome the problem of mass loading, typical of contact sensors as accelerometers and strain-gauges, which has strong influence in case of lightweight structures. Moreover, the possibility of driving automatically the laser beam, by means of moving mirrors controlled with galvanometer servo-actuators, permits to perform scanning measurements at different locations with high spatial resolution and reduced testing time and easily measure the operational deflection shapes (ODS) of the scanned surface. The exploitation of the moving mirrors has allowed to drive the laser beam in a continuous way making it to scan continuously over the structure surface and cover it completely. This way of operation, named Continuous Scanning LDV, permits to perform full-field measurements, the LDV output carrying simultaneously the time-and spatial-dependent information related to the structural vibration. A complementary strategy making use of the LDV coupled with moving mirrors is the so called Tracking LDV, where the laser beam is driven to follow a moving object whose trajectory must be known a priori or measured during operation (e.g. via an encoder in the case of rotating structures). In this paper some applications of the Tracking Laser Doppler Vibrometry (TLDV) and Continuous Scanning Laser Doppler Vibrometry (CSLDV) will be described they concerning, specifically modal and vibrational analysis of rotating structures.