Project Overview
Senior Design team 4 is engineering a monitoring device for the Danfoss Turbocor testing lab. This device is used for monitoring the inlet of their compressors which contain guide blades to regulate the fluid flowing into the inlet and increase the performance of the compressor. These blades can fail due to high pressure and vibrations in the fluid. Danfoss Turbocor does not currently have a method to inspect the blades while the compressor is running. The device we constructed provides Danfoss with a real-time video feed of the blades in the center of the compressor inlet. With this the test lab can determine if the blades are working properly. The device uses a small camera placed inside a section of pipe attached to the front of the compressor. This camera records live video and provides a direct feed to the test lab. This video feed also monitors a set of stickers placed on the blades which provide more detailed information about the state of the blades like if they are broken or moving when they aren't supposed to. A computer looks at the video feed and determines if all of the stickers on the blades are present and computes the angle of the blades based on the tilt of the stickers. By detecting and analyzing these stickers, the system is able to automatically determine if all the blades are present and provides a general estimate of the angle of each individual blade. Our team designed the pipe and housing for the camera. We also developed the program to analyze the stickers on the blades. With the device, Danfoss engineers and designers can see the blades during operation for the first time, and they can learn about the conditions that the vanes undergo during operation.
