An Optical Method for Detecting Torsion in a Power Transmission Shaft in Realtime

Abstract

An optical method has been proposed for detecting torsion in a power transmission shaft in rcaltime. The method detects both light signals reflected on two mirrors attached to both sides of a rotating shaft and the time difference between them simultaneolisly. The system consists of a sensor head consisting of two semiconductor lasers, two mirrors, and two silicon photodiodes, and includes a data processing system composed of a comparator, high frequency oscillator, logic circuit, and counter. In principle, the method has no error factors.