A Study on the Measurement of the Pipeline Displacement Vibration Using Accelerometers

The stress analysis of the pipeline is required in any kind of plant for its safe operation. For this, the displacement vibration data measured at many locations of the pipeline should be provided. In reality, the installation of the non-contact type displacement sensors such as laser displacement sensors or eddy current type proximity sensors in a narrow and confined region in the vicinity of the pipeline is almost impracticable. In this work, the general purpose piezo-ceramic accelerometers were attached on the measuring points on the pipeline and the acceleration vibration signal was acquired. The measured acceleration signal was low pass filtered and then downsampled. The resulting acceleration signal was transformed into both the time-domain and frequency-domain displacement signal utilizing the fast Fourier transform techniques. All the procedures are presented in detail. It is demonstrated that the measurement of the pipeline acceleration by using contact type accelerometers can be made for the purpose of providing the required displacement data for the stress analysis of the pipeline.