Fast Fourier Transformation of Vibration Signals using Microsoft Excel Page 1 of 4

Fast Fourier Transformation of Vibration Signals using Microsoft

EXCEL

Mohammed Aref
(mdaref120@gmail.com)

Department of Information Technology

Salalah College of Technology (SCOT)
Salalah, Sultanate of Oman

Abstract
One needs to do signal analysis for a variety of situations. The Fast Fourier
Transformation is the mainstay of vibration signal analysis as it is the most time
saving algorithm. It is a computational algorithm which computes Fourier
Transformation of discrete data. This can be done by several of the packages
available. We chose to use the Microsoft Excel as it is very widely available.
Microsoft Excel is a wonderful and easily available application which can be used for
implementing this algorithm. The experiments show that this method is capable to
find the Fourier Transformation of the vibration signals.

Background
The Science laboratories supposed to be made up of three components, namely
data gathering, Analysis and conclusions. Many experiments need high speed
data collection, like the study of sound or vibration signals. We know that
vibrations are the fluctuations of a mechanical system about an equilibrium
position. To analyze the data may need some sophisticated mathematical
techniques like FFT. The Fast Fourier transform (FFT), which is an efficient
adaptation of Fourier’s work, is regularly used to analyze sound waves. Here we
are trying to do it using MS-Excel, which is easily available application software
mostly in every personal computer. The hardware and software available with the
computers can be used for some experiments without any additional expenses.
The microphone and the sound card provide a means for data gathering and the
spreadsheet Excel provides a means of data analysis.
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Design
We have used the microphone and sound card, along with the PC oscilloscope
program Winscope downloaded from internet to study sound in time and
frequency domain as shown in the fig 1. This experiment carries out two phases,
the first is to acquire the data, second process the acquired data using MS-Excel.
For this experiment the data source is computer speaker. That the .wav file is
played and at the same time sound data recorded with help of setup shown in fig
1. The captured data has been transferred to Microsoft Excel oscilloscope for
Windows, which is a Windows application. We are grateful to Konstantin
Zeldovich for providing Winscope program free of cost on internet. MS-Excel
spreadsheet provides quite a powerful environment for such experiments. We
are in process of developing many other experiments using sound card. Here we
would like to be able to measure the signal as a function of time at a specific data
acquisition rate, which depends on the nature of the observed signal.

Fig 1: Schematic experimental setup

MS-Excel provides the FFT tools. One can access it from the tools menu as by
opening Data analysis. If in case data Analysis does not appear in the tools
menu, so it can be access from Add-Ins menu by adding Analysis Toolpak as
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Fourier Transform is a part of it. Finally Fourier Analysis can be select from Data
Analysis list. Excel works with discrete data and has a build in Fast Fourier
Transform Algorithm. The important and basic requirement is that the number of
points to be transformed must be always 2 n. To make exactly with the same
number of samples points if needed can add zeros.
An FFT operation involves complex numbers. In excel, such a number can be
represented as -19.085527+.66697647i. The Wave data we are getting is –real
number, just complex number with no imaginary parts. The computer sound card
captures the data by 22050Hz sampling rate. Here we have got 512 sample
points in the table shown in fig 2. By plotting the graph of derive points (FFT
values) and Signal Amplitude column the resultant picture shown in fig 3.
Actually, there are a lot of things to be borne in mind when doing this, but this
simple example does illustrates the method and shows its potential.

Fig 2: Reconstructed Signal values from Sampled Points using MS-Excel

 Fast Fourier Transformation of Vibration Signals using Microsoft Excel Page 4 of 4

Fig 3: Fast Fourier Transformation using MS-Excel

Conclusions
It is seen that PC with microphone, sound card, winscope program and MS-Excel
spreadsheet provides quite a powerful environment for such experiments. We
are in process of developing many other experiments using sound card.

References:

1. “Using Sound to Analyze Hardware Operation: A Progress Report”, Robert Karns

Henry, East Tennessee State University
2. FFT Spectrum Analyzer Applet , United Kingdom
3. “Digital Data Acquisition and Analysis”, Department of Physics, Northeastern
University
4. “Sound Analysis using FFT”, Dr. Mohammed Iqbal, Department of Physics,
India.
5. Ronald N. Bracewell, "The Fourier Transform," Scientific American, June 1989,
pp. 86-95.
6. “Mechanical Vibrations” , S. Graham Kelly, McGraw-Hill International Editions,
Mechanical Engineering Series
7. The Zoom FFT by Bores Signal processing , Surrey