Tribology International 44 (2011) 175–179

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Tribology International
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/triboint

A high throughput inductive pulse sensor for online oil debris monitoring
Li Du 1, Jiang Zhe n
Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Akron, 302 Buchtel Common, Akron, OH 44325-3903, USA

a r t i c l e in f o abstract

Article history: A high throughput inductive pulse sensor based on inductive Coulter counting principle for detecting
Received 1 September 2010 metallic wear debris in lubrication oil is presented. The device detects the passage of metallic debris by
Received in revised form monitoring the inductance change of a two-layer planar coil with a meso-scale fluidic pipe crossing its
18 October 2010
center, which is designed to attain high throughput without sacrificing the sensitivity. The testing results
Accepted 20 October 2010
Available online 29 October 2010
using iron and copper particles ranging in size from 50 to 150 mm have demonstrated that the device is
capable of detecting and distinguishing ferrous and non-ferrous metallic debris in lubrication oil with a
Keywords: high throughput.
Oil debris & 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Condition-based maintenance
Inductive sensor
High throughput

1. Introduction to detect debris particle and determine their size is valuable in

New technology for health monitoring in rotating machinery has
been extensively sought by both military and civil industries for the
last decade. Rotating equipment used by the military often seek to
operate at the peak capacity to ensure accomplishment of the
mission goals. As a result, even a small undetectable fault in the gear
or bearing system can quickly develop into a dangerous failure
mode. For commercial applications, efficiency, cost, and safety of
operations are usually the primary goals. Unnecessary mainte-
nances and work interruption are highly undesirable in their
operations. Therefore condition based monitoring has become
essential in maintaining and extending the health of high-speed
rotating and reciprocating machinery. The real-time detection of
machine component wear can eliminate the need for costly
machine shutdowns for inspection, which would otherwise be
required to avoid the possibility of catastrophic component failure
during operation. One effective approach to detect signs of potential
failure of a rotating or reciprocating machine is to examine the life
blood of a rotating or reciprocating machine: its lubrication oil.
A few studies [1,2] have indicated that during normal machine
operation, wear debris in lubrication oil is of constant concentra-
tion and small size, typically in the range of 1–20 mm; when
abnormal wear begins, the debris concentration gradually
increases, and the size of the debris particles grows as large as
50–100 mm. The concentration and size of particles increase
gradually with time, until the machine fails. Therefore, the ability
n
Correspondence author. Tel.: + 1 330 972 7737; fax: + 1 330 972 6027.
E-mail addresses: ld22@zips.uakron.edu (L. Du), jzhe@uakron.edu (J. Zhe).
1
Tel.: +1 330 972 7264; fax: +1 330 972 6027.
evaluating the level of wear in the machinery components. In
addition to reduce contact friction, tribological surfaces are often
coated with special non-ferrous coatings. Thus, the ability to
differentiate ferrous and non-ferrous debris can provide valuable
information in identifying worn components and predicting the
remaining life time.
A few real-time oil condition monitoring devices have been
developed. Optical methods such as scattering counters are capable
of detecting small particles in lubrication oils. However, the
accuracy of the optical approach is affected by fluid clarity, particle
refractive index and the existence of air bubbles [2,3]. The acoustic
emission detection method, based on the amplitude change of
reflected acoustic waves, is sensitive to interference caused by
background acoustic emission and lubrication oil temperature
variation [2,4]. Bulk capacitance sensing [5–7] uses a simple
sensing structure; however, the measured capacitance change
often reflects not only the presence of particles but also changes
in lubricant properties, such as total acid number and viscosity;
this, in turn, creates difficulties in detecting debris. Furthermore,
none of these methods can differentiate ferrous and non-ferrous
debris particles. Many inductive sensors using 3-D solenoid have
been studied for oil debris detection, but they are limited to debris
larger than 100 mm in size because of the low sensitivity of 3-D
solenoids [8–10]. In our prior work, we fabricated a microfluidic
inductive Coulter counting device that monitored the change in
inductance of a planar coil embedded in the microchannel. The
device can detect metallic particle as small as 50 mm owing to the
inductive change caused by metal particles presented in micro-
channel. While this device has demonstrated using inductive
Coulter counting principle for detection of small metallic particles,
one drawback is that it used a microfluidic channel (channel height

0301-679X/$ - see front matter & 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.triboint.2010.10.022
176 L. Du, J. Zhe / Tribology International 44 (2011) 175–179
250 mm) to force the particle pass a planar coil very close to its
surface, the most sensitive region of the planar coil. With such a
small channel the sensor could analyze only a very limited amount
of lubrication oil, and has a large chance of being clogged by large
debris; therefore its capability for real time oil debris monitoring
was limited. While the throughout can be increased by increasing
the channel height, doing so would cause a decrease in sensitivity; a
particle passing the coil far above the coil surface where the
magnetic flux is weak may not be detected. More importantly,
because the inductance change is very sensitive to particle’s
position along the channel height direction, two debris particles
with the same size but passing the coil at different vertical positions
may cause different inductance changes; this in turns leads to
errors in determining the debris size.
To overcome the above limitations, in this article we demon-
strate an oil debris sensor that used a two-layer planar coil with a
meso-scale fluidic pipe crossing the planar coil’s center as the
sensing element. Because of the use of a meso-scale fluidic channel,
the throughput is significantly higher than the device using a
microfluidic channel [11]. Each debris is guided to pass through
the center of the planar coil, the most sensitive region. Therefore
the influence of particle’s vertical position is eliminated because
the inductive pulses induced by all particles have the same
inductance baseline. The paper is organized as follows. In
Section 2, we present the design concept and sensing mechanism
of the oil debris sensor. Next, the sensitivity for detecting small
metallic particles of the planar coil is compared to that of a 3-D
solenoid. In the following section, we present the experimental
setup and the dynamic testing results that demonstrate the high
throughput counting of metallic debris in the lubrication oil. Finally
the discussion and the conclusions are presented.
Fig. 1. Schematic of the oil debris sensor for metal particle detection in lubrication oil.
Fig. 2. Schematic of the sensing mechanism: (a) magnetic field induced in planar coil owing to a current passing through planar coil, (b) magnetic flux is attenuated owing to
eddy current generated in a conductive particle and (c) magnetic flux is enhanced owing to high relative permeability but also attenuated owing to eddy current.
2. Device design
Fig. 1 shows a schematic of the oil debris sensor. It consists of a
two-layer planar coil assembled between two 1.5 mm thick glass
slides, and a glass tube with a 1 mm inner diameter and a 1.2 mm
outer diameter. To build the planar coil, first we drilled a 1.3 mm
through hole at the center of each glass slide. Next two glass slides
were clamped with a 175 mm gap, which was created by applying a
175 mm spacing consisting of seven layers of cellophane tape at the
upmost left and right edges of the two glass slides. Then the glass
tube was inserted into the through hole; a small amount of epoxy
was applied in the gap between the glass tube and the hole’s edge,
and was dried in air to fix the glass tube. Next a 2 layers of 10-turn
planar coil was built layer by layer by carefully winding AWG 40
copper wire (80 mm in diameter) around the glass tube in the
175 mm gap between the two glass slides. The major reason that we
built a two-layer planar coil instead of using a 20-turn single layer
coil is to enhance the magnetic flux density and inductance
sensitivity at the central hole of the planar coil.
Fig. 2 illustrates the sensing principle of the device. An AC
voltage is applied across the planar coil, and induces a magnetic
field in the inductor (Fig. 2(a)). If a non-ferrous metallic particle is
introduced into the pipe, an eddy current is generated inside the
metal particle in a way that opposes the original magnetic field
(Fig. 2(b)); as a result, the total magnetic flux is decreased, leading
to a decrease in the planar coil’s inductance Ls. The higher the
frequency of the AC excitation, the larger the eddy current and
therefore the larger the drop in the inductance Ls. If a ferrous and
metallic particle (with relative magnetic permeability mr signifi-
cantly higher than that of lubrication oil) is introduced into the
pipe, two factors, magnetic permeability and eddy current, con-
tribute to Ls in competing ways. First, because ferrous particle has a
higher permeability, the magnetic flux would be enhanced (green
lines in Fig. 2(c)), causing an increase in inductance Ls. On the other
hand, an eddy current would also be generated inside the particle,
causing a decrease in Ls. At low frequencies, the eddy current is
small, and the impedance increase caused by the change in
magnetic permeability is dominant; thus, passage of a ferrous
metallic particle generates a positive inductive pulse. Therefore
ferrous and non-ferrous debris can be differentiated by looking at
pulse polarity at an appropriate frequency.
In comparison to the microfluidic inductive sensor presented in
our prior publication [11], this sensor has two advantages: First,
with the large central opening of the planar coil, it is able to use a
relatively large fluidic pipe; hence the device can process a larger
amount of lubricant per unit time. Secondly, a fluidic pipe
perpendicular to the coil surface is used to guide debris passing
through the center of the planar coil; this ensures each particle
passes the most sensitive region and thus eliminate particle’s
vertical position effect; two debris particles with the same size
 L. Du, J. Zhe / Tribology International 44 (2011) 175–179 177

cause the same inductance change when they pass the planar coil’s
center through the fluidic pipe.

3. Static testing and analysis

In the debris sensor design we use a two-layer planar coil with

dense coil turns as the sensing element to detect microscale
metallic debris in lubrication oil because of its higher sensitivity
than a 3-D solenoid with the same amount of coil turns. As
illustrated in Fig. 3, for a 3-D solenoid, its sensing zone is the
volume enclosed by the solenoid where the magnetic flux is
uniformly distributed (see Fig. 3(a)). While for a planar coil, the
magnetic flux is concentrated near the surface of the planar coil’s
center (see Fig. 3(b)), so its sensing zone is smaller than the sensing Fig. 4. Measured inductance change caused by an 85 mm iron particle as a function
of vertical position.
zone of a 3-D solenoid with many coil turns. Outside the sensing
zone, the magnetic flux drops dramatically. Because the change in
magnetic flux and thus the change in inductance is proportional to
the ratio of the volume of a debris to the volume of the sensing zone,
the smaller the volume of the sensing zone, the higher the
sensitivity. Therefore a debris passing through a planar coil causes
a larger change in coil inductance than a debris passing through a
3-D solenoid. To further increase the sensitivity, we used two layers
of 10-turn coil instead of a 20-turn planar coil; this is because the
outer 10 turns of a 20-turn planar coil is not effective in enhancing
the magnetic flux density at the sensing zone. Static experiment
was conducted to prove the sensitivity of the two-layer planar coil
is higher than a 3-D solenoid with 20 coil turns, which was built by
winding AWG 40 copper wires around a glass tube identical to the
one used for fabricating the 2-layer planar coil (see Section 2). An
85 mm in-diameter spherical iron particle was fixed at the free end
of a plastic fiber attached to a precision stage. The plastic fiber by Fig. 5. Relative magnetic flux density as a function of radial position at the central
itself caused negligible inductance change. The precision stage was plane (z¼ 0) along radial direction.
used to move the particle to the center of the 3-D solenoid and the
center of the two-layer planar coil in discrete steps along the axis of slower. In addition, the relative inductance change measured at the
the glass tube (z-direction). Both the 2-layer planar coil and the center of the 2-layer planar coil is 0.095%, much higher than that
solenoid with the glass tubes were immersed in SAE-5W30 measured at the center of the 3-D solenoid, 0.044%.
lubrication oil. Fig. 4 shows relative inductive change caused by Next, the relative magnetic flux density along radius direction
the 85 mm iron particle placed in both coils measured with an (B(r)) of the two-layer planar coil on the z ¼0 plane was calculated
Agilent 4980A precision LCR meter. It is obvious that the sensing using Vizimags, which performed a numerical integration using
zone of the 2-layer planar coil is narrower than that of the 3-D the theoretical equation of a current loop [12]:
solenoid; the inductance change of the 2-layer planar coil drops " pffiffiffiffiffi ! pffiffiffiffiffi !#
R 1 2 rR Rþ r 1 2 rR
dramatically as the particle was moved away from z ¼0 plane. In BðrÞ ¼ B0 E sin Þ þ K sin Þ
comparison, the inductance change of a 3-D solenoid drops much
pðRþ rÞ Rþ r Rr R þr

where B0 is the magnetic flux density at r ¼0 on the z¼0 plane, R is

the radius of planar coil’s central opening, r is the radial position,
E(y) and K(y) are complete elliptic integrals of the first kind and the
second kind, respectively.
Fig. 5 shows the calculated relative magnetic flux density
(B(r)/B0) of the 2-D planar coil at z ¼0 plane. The maximum
difference between B0 and B near the channel wall is 30%; because
the inductance change is proportional to the volume of the particle,
this variation will only cause an error up to 9% in particle size
estimation. Hence two identical particles at different radial posi-
tions will generate similar inductance changes. This is important
for oil debris sensing because with a large fluidic pipe debris
particles could appear in any radial position.

4. Experimental results and discussion

The experiment setup is illustrated in Fig. 6. Metallic particles

with known sizes were mixed with SAE-5W30 lubrication oils to
test the device. A plastic tube was used to connect the syringe pump
Fig. 3. Illustration of sensing zones of inductive oil debris sensors using (a) a 3-D and inlet of the glass tube of the device. The oil sample with mixed
solenoid and (b) a 2-layer planar coil as the sensing elements. metallic particles was pumped to pass the center of the planar coil
178 L. Du, J. Zhe / Tribology International 44 (2011) 175–179

Table 1
Metal particles used in testing the device.

Iron particles Copper particles

Iron particle 1 (75–105 mm) Copper particle 1

Iron particle 2 (50–75 mm) (105–150 mm)

Fig. 6. Illustration of experimental setup.

by the syringe pump with a controlled flow rate, and was collected
with a 1 liter oil tank. For all experiments the flow rate of oil sample
was set to be 3 ml/min. An Agilent E4980A precision LCR meter was
connected to the planar coil to monitor the inductance change. In
all experiments, the testing signal used for the LCR meter was a
1 Vpp, 2 MHz sine wave. The LCR meter was set up to assume that
the coil consists of a pure inductance and a pure resistance in series.
The measurement time was set to ‘‘short time’’; for this setup, the
response time of the inductance measurement is 5.8 ms. When
there was no metal particle in the lubrication oil, the base
inductance was measured to be 1.288 mH.
Iron particles and copper particles were used to test the device.
Their approximate sizes are summarized in Table 1. Iron particles
were obtained from iron powders (ChemicalStore.com, USA). Three
brass sieves (mesh 140, mesh 200 and mesh 270, W.S. TYLER, USA)
were used to select particles of sizes varying from 50 to 75 mm and
75–105 mm. Copper particles were obtained from copper grinding
dust. Two brass sieves (mesh 100 and mesh 140, W.S. TYLER, USA)
were used to select copper particles of sizes varying from 105 to
150 mm.
In next experiments, 1 mg metal particles mixed with 10 ml
SAE-5W30 lubrication oil were loaded to the syringe pump and
forced to flow through the fluidic pipe via a syringe pump. Response
of the device was recorded. The base inductance of the device
was measured to be 1.288 mH when oil with no metal particles was
loaded. Fig. 7(a) and (b) show the testing results for iron particles
with sizes from 75 to 105 mm and from 50 to 75 mm, respectively.
Results show that when oil with iron particles was loaded, positive Fig. 7. Measured relative inductance change caused by (a) 75–105 mm iron
inductive pulses were observed. Each pulse represents the passage particles, (b) 50–75 mm iron particles and (c) 105–150 mm copper particles.

of one iron particle through the tube. The durations of measured

pulses range from 24 to 42 ms. The pulse heights generated by
larger iron particles (75–105 mm) range from 0.091% to 0.167%,
larger than those generated by small iron particles (50–75 mm)
ranging from 0.017% to 0.061%. This indicates the pulse height is
indicative of particle sizes. Next we tested non-ferrous copper
particles of sizes ranging from 105 to 150 mm and the results are
shown in Fig. 7(c). It is obviously that when oil with non-ferrous
particles was loaded, negative pulses were generated. The pulse
height generated by copper particles (105–150 mm) is from
0.016% to 0.051%. The difference in pulse height is primarily
due to particle size difference. We note here that with the same
testing particles, the amplitude of inductive pulses measured with
this sensor is similar to that with the microfluidic oil debris sensor
[11]. The flow rate was 3 ml/min, which is about 6 times higher
than the flow rate used for a microfluidic inductive oil debris
sensor. Therefore our design using a 2-layer planar coil with a large
central opening as the sensing element enables a high throughput
oil debris sensor without sacrificing the sensitivity. Note here that
the flow rate can be set higher to increase the throughput with a
fast inductance measurement circuit; because of the slow response
time of the LCR meter (5.8 ms) in the testing a relatively low flow
rate, 3 ml/min, was set to ensure each inductive pulse was
represented by at least 4 data points. Fewer data points may cause
a large error in pulse amplitude and an underestimation in
particle size.
Next 0.5 mg iron particles with diameters ranging from 50 to
75 mm and 0.5 mg copper particles ranging from 105 to 150 mm
mixed with 10 ml SAE-5W30 lubrication oil were tested. Fig. 8
shows the testing results. Both positive and negative pulses were
generated; positive pulses were induced by iron particles, while
negative pulses were induced by copper particles. This test
demonstrates the device can differentiate ferrous particles and
non-ferrous particles.
 L. Du, J. Zhe / Tribology International 44 (2011) 175–179
Fig. 8. Measured relative inductance change caused by iron particles with size from
50 to 75 mm and copper particles with size ranging105–150 mm.
We note here that detection of debris with diameters ranging
from 20 to 50 mm is important, because it provides early warning
for machine wear. While we only tested this device with
50–105 mm in-diameter iron particles and 105–150 mm in-dia-
meter copper particles, the sensitivity of the device can be
improved to detect smaller debris particles by using external
amplification circuit and noise shielding techniques to amplify
the measurement signal. Additionally, smaller copper particles can
be detected by using higher excitation frequencies; at a higher
frequency, the eddy current effect is strengthened and causes a
larger inductance change.
It is worth to mention here that while the throughout can be
further improved using a planar coil with a larger central opening
to allow a larger flow rate, doing so would cause a reduction in
magnetic flux density in the sensing zone, and result in a decrease
in sensitivity. This may be compensated by adding additional layers
of planar coils. However, if a large number of planar coil layers are
added, the volume of the sensing zone would be increased and may
cause a reduction in sensitivity. Hence there should be a limit for
number of planar coil layers that can be added. To further improve
the throughput without sacrificing the sensitivity, a device with
multiple detection channels that are operated in parallel can be
used to analyze a large volume of lubrication oil. High throughput
microparticle detection in electrolyte [13] has been demonstrated
using a multichannel microfluidic device; the concept can be
applied to oil debris sensor design.
Another advantage of this inductive sensor is that both air
bubbles and water droplets, usually generated during machine
operation, are not expected to generate inductance pulses with this
device as proved in our prior work [11]. This is because (1) the
permeability of air and water are similar to that of oils, and (2) their
conductivity is much lower than that of metals so the eddy current
effect is low. Therefore this sensor is expected to eliminate the false
positives due to the presence of air bubble and water droplets that
other oil debris sensing methods may encounter such as acoustic
detection, which is important for identifying faults and predicting
health status of rotary or reciprocating machinery.
179
5. Conclusion
We demonstrated a high throughout, high sensitivity inductive
sensor for detection microscale metallic debris in nonconductive
lubrication oil. The high throughput was achieved by using a two-
layer planar coil with a meso-scale fluidic pipe crossing the coil’s
center. Because of the small volume of the sensing zone, the device
has a high sensitivity and is able to measure metal particles as small
as 50 mm. Compared to a counterpart microfluidic inductive
Coulter counter, the throughput has been improved 6 times with-
out sacrificing the sensitivity. This design concept demonstrated
here can be extended to a device with parallel detection channels
for further improvement in throughput, which is critical for online
wear debris monitoring.
Acknowledgement
This article is based upon work supported by the National
Science Foundation under Grant no. CMMI-0968736. The authors
would like to thank Drs. Carletta and Veillette of the Department of
Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Dr. Fred Choy of the
Department of Mechanical Engineering, all at University of Akron,
for the valuable discussions.
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