Eddy-Current Sensor
My senior design project at the University of Vermont involved creating a precise displacement sensor to sense wear and movement of a carbon steel thrust bearing (mock material below). Working alongside the electrical engineers on the team, we developed a prototype for a non-invasive Eddy-current sensor. The sensor circuitry was laid out on a PCB controlled by an Arduino microcontroller and connected to an LCD screen for user-friendly readout. The sensor then sat in an Inconel fabricated sensor well pointed towards a fake “bearing” in our testing rig. After months and months of testing, the final sensor design was able to read axial displacements through high temperature water with ferrous residue within a tolerance of +- 0.002” repeatably. The sensor concept was later adopted by our client to better predict when maintenance is needed on their pumps and motors. My role for the project was designing and manufacturing the testing rig and/or supporting fixtures as well as managing the project budget. I was also able to get more experience with ANSYS Fluent CFD when we ran into unexpected problems with heating the water in the testing rig.
The video of our journey and process can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuVlJeiqmug
