Providing reliable measurement data on relevant state and process variables of technical systems is one of the key enablers for achieving Industry 4.0. To facilitate the integration of sensory functions into technical systems, sensing machine elements have come into focus, as conventional machine elements are found in almost every technical system and can therefore be easily replaced by their sensory counterparts. Against this background, an inventive sensory disk pack coupling was developed and introduced in prior works. This coupling enables in-situ measurement of the radial shaft offset and the rotational frequency of the coupling – both important measurands in mechanical drive trains – based on the piezoelectric effect. Since this coupling has only been investigated to a limited extent so far, the objective of this contribution is to experimentally explore its potentials. Therefore, a screening test plan is developed and executed using an existing gearbox test bench. Within these screening tests, various rotational frequencies and radial offset levels are investigated. Based on the test results, both a comparison between the measurement results and the set level values, as well as a comparison among the measurement results themselves, is carried out. These analyses form the basis for assessing the potential of the sensory disk pack coupling.
Welzbacher et al. (Thu,) studied this question.