What are the types of accelerometers?

An accelerometer is an instrument that measures the acceleration of a carrier line. An accelerometer consists of a detecting mass (also known as a sensitive mass), a support, a potentiometer, a spring, a damper, and a housing. Among them, the accelerometer used in the measurement of aircraft overload is one of the earliest aircraft instruments.

There are many types of accelerometers:

According to the displacement method of the detection mass, there are linear accelerometers (the detection mass is linear displacement) and pendulum accelerometers (the detection mass rotates around the support axis);

According to the support method, there are gem support, flexible support, air float, liquid float, magnetic levitation and electrostatic levitation.

According to the composition of the measurement system, there are open-loop and closed-loop types.

There are vibrating wire type, vibrating beam type and pendulum integrating gyro accelerometer according to the working principle.

Classified by the number of input axes, there are single-axis, dual-axis and tri-axis accelerometers;

Classified by sensing element, there are piezoelectric type, piezoresistive type and potentiometer type.

The construction of piezoelectric accelerometer is based on the principle of spring mass system. When the mass of the sensitive core is subjected to vibration acceleration, a force proportional to the acceleration is generated, and a charge signal is formed along the surface of the piezoelectric material under the action of this force, so that data can be collected. Piezoelectric accelerometer has the characteristics of large dynamic range, wide frequency range, strong and durable, little interference from the outside and no need for external power supply, etc., it is the most widely used vibration measurement sensor by engineers. The most commonly used piezoelectric crystal material for piezoelectric accelerometers is quartz, because the material characteristics of quartz are wide operating temperature range and stable performance, so it is often used as a standard sensor piezoelectric material in practical applications.ER-QA-03C is a smaller volume quartz accelerometer, not only it can be used in aviation and aerospace inertial tests but also can be used in both static and dynamic acceleration measurements. In addition, the accelerometer uses a temperature sensor, which the operator can use to compensate bias and scale factor parameters to reduce the influence of temperature factors.

The sensitive core of piezoresistive accelerometer is a resistance measuring bridge made of semiconductor material, and its structural dynamic model is still a spring mass system. Another disadvantage of piezoresistive accelerometers is that they are greatly affected by temperature, and the sensors used need to be compensated for temperature. In terms of price, piezoresistive sensors using special sensitive core systems will cost much more than piezoelectric acceleration sensors, usually several times more.

The structure of capacitive acceleration sensor also adopts spring mass system. When the mass moves under the action of acceleration, the gap between the mass block and the fixed electrode changes, and the capacitance value changes. Compared with other types of accelerometers, capacitive accelerometers have the characteristics of high sensitivity, zero frequency response and good environmental applicability, especially the effect of temperature is relatively small, and can be used in many harsh field environment data acquisition. However, the shortcomings are manifested in that the input and output of the signal are nonlinear, the range is limited, and the capacitance of the cable is affected.

The characteristics of several different classifications are usually used to name an accelerometer .Accelerometer is the most important factor in engineering vibration measurement. In the test system, the sensor is the first step of data acquisition and analysis, so whether the sensor can be correctly selected and used will directly affect the quality and accuracy of the measurement signal.

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