When talking with people outside the company, I was asking, “What kind of company is Air Surf?” If asked this, the most accurate answer would be this.
This company manufactures devices by measuring vibrations
Every movement of an object is accompanied by vibration. For rotating machines, vibration is due to rotational power; for reciprocating machines, it is vibration of reciprocating period; for fluid machinery, pulsation. For those who have designed equipment, this is a given. However, when you hear that “vibration speaks to everything about the device,” some people might feel a bit uneasy.
Vibration is the device’s “confession”
Any power device we handle emits vibrations when assembled and powered on. This vibration is like a voice confessing to the device itself, “This is my current state.”
- If an abnormal peak occurs at a specific rotation speed, it is stepping on the resonance point.
- If harmonics are larger than expected, drive control is disrupted.
- If the vibration level rises from a certain time of day, the bearing has started to wear
- If vibrations in a specific direction are only strong, the center is off.
All of these can be understood by attaching a single accelerometer to the installation surface without disassembling the device. With a 30-second measurement.
The dull task of “measuring vibration” is the most powerful sensing that simultaneously teaches the current condition of the device, lifespan prediction, and design improvement directions.
You can’t trust the design without measuring
At Air Surf Co., Ltd., we make sure to confirm almost all design decisions through measurement.
For example, when a prototype high-efficiency motor is completed, efficiency figures are measured internally using at least three different methods.
- Directly measured with a power meter and torque meter as the ratio of input power to output machine power
- Estimate losses from temperature rise by calculating backward from heat generation
- Measuring acoustic power levels and estimating mechanical losses from radiated sound
Only when these three measurements match within an error margin of 1–2% is it allowed to claim “Efficiency ◯◯%” internally. If you make even one mistake, you will return to the design until you understand the reason.
If you ask if this is difficult, it is difficult. It takes a full day to measure the efficiency of a single prototype. However, a company that saves on this effort and creates “numbers that can be written in a catalog” will not become a trusted company.
If “vibration is a given,” improvement stops
Twenty years ago, when I began researching reciprocating engines, industry design textbooks stated that “characteristic vibrations caused by crank mechanisms cannot be completely eliminated by design.” In other words, the standard was to design with the assumption that vibration would occur.
However, the more vibrations are measured, the more it becomes apparent that within those “assumptions” vibrations are significant amounts of machine loss and energy waste. Shortening the lifespan of equipment, causing noise pollution, increasing power consumption—all of these vibrations are the same.
By measuring and quantifying what is “unavoidable,” you become clear whether it is truly unavoidable or a problem no one has seriously tried to solve.
“Measuring on the Ground” Is the Company Culture
Within our company, we have simple rules.
“If you can’t show the data, then your judgment has no basis.”
If someone says in a meeting, “Based on experience, I think this should be done,” I always return it with the saying, “Let’s measure before making a decision.” Experience is important, but it does not come before measurement.
There are things new employees always have to do during their first week. He handed it over, saying, “Please measure one prototype motor in-house.”
Engineering begins with figuring out what to measure to understand the condition of the equipment—thinking about this for yourself begins. If you don’t train yourself to assemble these, design decisions will always rely on ‘experience and intuition.’
Measurement culture builds trust in products
When customers borrow our evaluation equipment for in-house testing, they sometimes say, “The data collection is more detailed than I expected.” That means we simply provide you with the measurement procedures we usually use.
Product reliability cannot be achieved by “excellent design” alone. Even if the design is excellent, a company without the system and culture to measure whether it truly excels cannot replicate excellent design.
Conclusion — Listening to vibrations allows you to communicate with the device
I always have some kind of accelerometer and a small oscilloscope on my desk. What they do is stop in front of the prototype in the company and suddenly think, “Isn’t it not working right now?” This is so that you can measure it on the spot when you feel that way. From experience, when a device starts to complain of malfunction, the vibration order components change much faster than humans notice.
Talking to the device — this is not a metaphor. In the language of vibration, the device speaks for itself. If you can train yourself to listen to it, you can maintain a long-term relationship with the device.
Author Profile
Chief Research and Development Officer at Air Surf Co., Ltd. Engaged for many years in research and development of power technology.