In-line Oil Viscosity Sensor Implementing An Elastomagnetic Ribbon Resonance

A new magnetoelastic technique of oil viscosity measurement, where the oil viscosity is estimated by frequency shift of natural oscillations of magnetoelastic ribbon, is implemented in this study. Laboratory tests of the detector prototype are performed for measurement of viscosity of base synthetic and mineral oils. It was found that measurement accuracy was better when damping factor was estimated in comparison with accuracy of frequency of damped oscillations. Thus the oil viscosity was calibrated as a function of number of pulses of the damped oscillations of magnetoelastic ribbon. Result generally showed that developed detector is promising for in line oil viscosity measurement in wide viscosity range from 10 cSt up to 600 cSt, while the viscosity measurement was relatively instable when the viscosity of test oil was over 400 cSt.