An investigation of sensors suitable for monitoring blade deflections for a VA1310 wind tunnel compressor

This work is a continuation of a contract to identify and develop a cost effective, reliable procedure for determining potential compressor blade failure in time to prevent the actual failure. The first phase of the contract proposed a system that utilizes non-contacting blade tip monitoring probes, a microprocessor and a host computer while this second phase concentrated on probe evaluation. Both static and dynamic tests were conducted to determine probe sensitivity, diameter of resolution and rise time.