Experimental and virtual models for monitoring and diagnostics

Experimental models are very useful to tune and to test diagnostics and monitoring pro¬cedures, being able to produce at will anomalous operation conditions, without compromising operation or production schedule and profits and to provide real world signals, i.e. true experimental sig¬nals of sensors; in addition they are also very important and efficient for learning and teaching the measurement procedures and the use of the available software and to develop and to verify origi¬nal software. A growing amount of kits, mainly referring to rotating machinery, is produced by mod¬els manufacturers, offering not only the simulators but also a rich choice of training courses and packages oriented to vibration analysis and fault diagnosis, and machinery maintenance. Many interest¬ing additions are made also by users or researchers, developing specific applications, either through modifications of available configurations, or through original prototypes. An overview of existing simulators is followed by considerations on improvement and development pos¬sibilities and on new possible complementary solutions.