Analysis of a raise boring reamer in operation based on acceleration measurements

The understanding of the complex dynamic phenomena occurring during the reaming operations of the raise boring process is limited. Any operational damage of the reamer is very likely to be caused by component failure due to fatigue effects from the dynamic processes. Therefore, an innovative measurement setup consisting of acceleration sensors in three axes was installed on a reamer to capture its movements and vibrations during operation. The capture of the reaming process by acceleration sensors was successful, however no operational damage on the reamer was observed during the reaming of three vertical shafts. The collected vibration data was implemented into a dynamic finite element assessment, which is intended to serve for lifetime predictions of components and predictive maintenance. A further step is investigating the potential for the implementation of the measurement data into a condition monitoring system and for optimizing the reaming operation.