Dr. Aly El-Shafei has 40 years experience in vibration, rotordynamics and machinery diagnostics. He Chairs the ISO committee TC 108/SC2/WG10 he is responsible for the development of international standards for machinery diagnostics and is a Board member of the Vibration Institute. Prof. El-Shafei has published more than 80 papers on the topic and holds 5 US patents to his name.
We have a webinar of Dr. El-Shafei’s “Introduction to Rotordynamics” in our online store available for purchase. Members of the Vibration Institute may view this webinar for FREE in our Member Portal.
Here is Dr. Aly’s letter from our Fall 2022 Issue of Vibrations Magazine:
In 2022, we have seen a return to normalcy in our training and certification activities. The Vibration Institute Annual Conference in July saw robust attendance. People were eager to go back to normal.
But 2022 was far from normal in Vibration Technology. We are seeing a major shift towards wireless MEMS sensors, cloud-based condition monitoring and applications of IIoT in Predictive Maintenance.
The vibration monitoring and diagnosis technologies are at an inflection point. The advent of low cost Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Systems (MEMS) accelerometers, with wireless sensors (thus eliminating costly cabling) provides for readily available data at reasonable cost. This means that eventually handheld data collectors shall be replaced by a wide range of low cost wireless accelerometers that provide vibration data if and when needed. These data can then be transferred to a cloud repository for further analysis. Condition monitoring tools can be used for condition evaluation. Moreover, historian software are being developed to store and analyze Big Data. This can be further used by Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques such as deep learning to provide useful condition evaluation and recommended actions.
Automatic diagnosis is still further away. Some rule-based expert systems are readily available in the market, and vary in their effectiveness. AI based diagnosis is still at its infancy but will probably make its way to the market. However, a very important tool for diagnosis emerged in the last few years which is vibration video motion magnification (VVMM). This technology is starting to replace ODS as a visualization tool, and fits well with the current trends as it provides Big Data, that can plausibly be integrated in future automated diagnostic software.
All this promises to shift the outlook for machine condition monitoring and promises to expand the business significantly. These technology shifts will challenge the current business models. Cloud Monitoring allows enterprises an opportunity to better manage their plants. Opportunities of centralizing the analysis or remote monitoring, or even outsourcing the condition monitoring services, provide unique strategies that can benefit the whole organization.
These technology shifts represent an opportunity for vibration technicians, engineers and analysts who can benefit from these technology trends, thus making our work significantly different. The Vibration Institute is aiming to provide the vibration community with the needed technology information that will help all of us to cross the current technology inflection point.