The Basics of StressWave Systems
What are Stress Waves? Stress waves are structure-borne ultrasound caused by friction and shock events between the moving parts of a machine. An externally mounted sensor on the machine’s housing can detect stress waves transmitted through the machine’s structure. A piezoelectric crystal in the sensor converts the stress wave amplitude into an electrical signal, which is then amplified and filtered by a high frequency band pass filter, to remove unwanted low frequency and sound and vibration energy. StressWave Systems provide an electronic means of detecting and analyzing sounds that travel through a machine structure at ultrasonic frequencies.
