Acoustic camera as a tool for identifying machinery and equipment failures

Sound and noise are as old as humanity itself. They have accompanied civilization, evolution, and development for centuries. Music and speech represent not only the key elements of human life but also unpleasant feelings of noise that have always been an integral part of human existence. As industrial development has required more energy, powerful machinery, and equipment, there have been still noisier machines. Traffic has grown quickly due to the number and speed of vehicles. For that reason, an acoustic camera is used for the dynamic visualization of machinery and equipment noise as it analyses the sources of noise in details. Subsequently, qualified measures are introduced based on the results of the analysis. The paper considers launching another application. According to the proposed methodology, its use in identifying machinery and equipment failures and their maintenance is proved. The experiment was performed on a four-wheel lawn mower. The primary focus was on the identification of failures using an acoustic camera. The previous method allowed to quickly, precisely and efficiently identifying the failures in two out of five tested machines.