As a consequence of recent implementations of EU Directives related to noise protection more and more students of various AGH-UST programs are introduced to the basics of acoustic measurements. Students at various levels of theoretical background in the field of acoustic measurements are offered practical training in measurements using digital sound analyzers. The situation would be optimal if each student could have a device at his/her own disposal. Unfortunately, such a situation is not possible at the moment because of various reasons.

With the above problem in mind, a dedicated software package has been developed, implemented in the LabVIEW environment, which allows detailed studies of problems related to the acoustic signal measurement using sound level meters, as well as tasks in spectral analysis (1/1 and 1/3 band filters) and narrow-band (FFT) analysis. With such organization during the introductory laboratory classes each student is offered a direct individual contact with a virtual device that is properly pre-programmed for realization of a well-constructed learning process. It definitely facilitates understanding of the essence of acoustic signal measurements and provides a good basis for further laboratory work carried out as a team-activity.

The condition monitoring techniques like acoustic emission, vibration analysis, and infrared thermography, used for the failure diagnosis of bearings, require longer processing time, as they have to perform acoustical measurement followed by signal processing and further analysis using special software. However, for any bearing, its period of usage can be easily determined within an hour, by measuring the bearing sound, using sound level meter (SLM). In this paper the acoustical analysis of the spindle bearing of a radial drilling machine was performed using SLM, by measuring the sound pressure level of the bearing in decibels, for different frequencies, while muting all the other noises. Then using an experimental set up, two database readings were taken, one for new bearing and the other for completely damaged bearing, both are SKF6207, which itself is the spindle bearing. From these three sets of sound pressure level readings, the period of usage of the spindle bearing, was calculated using an interpolation equation, by substituting the life of the bearing from the manufacturer’s catalogue. Therefore, for any machine with a SKF6207 bearing, its usage time can be estimated using the database readings and one measurement on that machine, all with the same speed.