Wireless Sensor Network for Advanced Energy Management Solutions

Eaton has developed an advanced energy management solution that has been deployed to several Industries of the Future (IoF) sites. This demonstrated energy savings and reduced unscheduled downtime through an improved means for performing predictive diagnostics and energy efficiency estimation. Eaton has developed a suite of online, continuous, and inferential algorithms that utilize motor current signature analysis (MCSA) and motor power signature analysis (MPSA) techniques to detect and predict the health condition and energy usage condition of motors and their connect loads. Eaton has also developed a hardware and software platform that provided a means to develop and test these advanced algorithms in the field. Results from lab validation and field trials have demonstrated that the developed advanced algorithms are able to detect motor and load inefficiency and performance degradation. Eaton investigated the performance of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) within various industrial facilities to understand concerns about topology and environmental conditions that have precluded broad adoption by the industry to date. A Wireless Link Assessment System (WLAS), was used to validate wireless performance under a variety of conditions. Results demonstrated that wireless networks can provide adequate performance in most facilities when properly specified and deployed. Customers from various IoF expressed interest in applying wireless more broadly for selected applications, but continue to prefer utilizing existing, wired field bus networks for most sensor based applications that will tie into their existing Computerized Motor Maintenance Systems (CMMS). As a result, wireless technology was de-emphasized within the project, and a greater focus placed on energy efficiency/predictive diagnostics. Commercially available wireless networks were only utilized in field test sites to facilitate collection of motor wellness information, and no wireless sensor network products were developed under this project. As an outgrowth of this program, Eaton developed a patented energy-optimizing drive control technology that is complementary to a traditional variable frequency drives (VFD) to enable significant energy savings for motors with variable torque applications, such as fans, pumps, and compressors. This technology provides an estimated energy saving of 2%-10% depending on the loading condition, in addition to the savings obtained from a traditional VFD. The combination of a VFD with the enhanced energy-optimizing controls will provide significant energy savings (10% to 70% depending on the load and duty cycle) for motors that are presently connected with across the line starters. It will also provide a more favorable return on investment (ROI), thus encouraging industries to adopt VFDs for more motors within their facilities. The patented technology is based on nonintrusive algorithms that estimate the instantaneous operating efficiency and motor speed and provide active energy-optimizing control of a motor, using only existing voltage and current sensors. This technology is currently being commercialized by Eaton’s Industrial Controls Division in their next generation motor control products. Due to the common nonintrusive and inferential nature of various algorithms, this same product can also include motor and equipment condition monitoring features, providing the facility owner additional information to improve process uptime and the associated energy savings. Calculations estimated potential energy savings of 261,397GWh/Yr ($15.7B/yr), through retrofitting energy-optimizing VFDs into existing facilities, and incorporating the solution into building equipment sold by original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and installed by mechanical and electrical contractors. Utilizing MCSA and MPSA for predictive maintenance (PM) of motors and connected equipment reduces process downtime cost and the cost of wasted energy associated with shutting down and restarting the processes. Estimated savings vary depending on the industry segment and equipment criticality per facility/process. Average downtime for an industrial facility is 4-12 hours with a cost/hr of$7500/hr, with large, critical processes reaching $50-100k/hr. Specific downtime costs are not included in this report because of customer confidentiality, but projected savings across the Industries of the Future (IoF) are still expected to be comparable to the original program estimates. Two generations of customer field deployments and evaluation have been completed during the course of this project. Results from these customer sites have been used for identifying the scope and improving the developed energy and wellness algorithms. The field deployments have confirmed that the hardware for sensing and sampling motor currents and voltages are reliable and able to provide an adequate signal-to-noise ratio from the electrical noise present on the motor signals

Parameter estimation for condition monitoring of PMSM stator winding and rotor permanent magnets

Winding resistance and rotor flux linkage are important to controller design and condition monitoring of a surface-mounted permanent-magnet synchronous machine (PMSM) system. In this paper, an online method for simultaneously estimating the winding resistance and rotor flux linkage of a PMSM is proposed, which is suitable for application under constant load torque. It is based on a proposed full-rank reference/variable model. Under constant load torque, a short pulse of id 0 is transiently injected into the d-axis current, and two sets of machine rotor speeds, currents, and voltages corresponding to id = 0 and id 0 are then measured for estimation. Since the torque is kept almost constant during the transient injection, owing to the moment of system inertia and negligible reluctance torque, the variation of rotor flux linkage due to injected id 0 can be taken into account by using the equation of constant torque without measuring the load torque and is then associated with the two sets of machine equations for simultaneously estimating the winding resistance and rotor flux linkage. Furthermore, the proposed method does not need the values of the $dq$-axis inductances, while the influence from the nonideal voltage measurement, which will cause an ill-conditioned problem in the estimation, has been taken into account and solved by error analysis. This method is finally verified on two prototype PMSMs and shows good performance. © 1982-2012 IEEE

Remote machine condition monitoring based on power supply measurements

The most widely used rotating machines in the industry are three phase alternative current (AC) induction machines. With the advances in variable speed drive (VSD) technology, they have become even more reliable than their direct current (DC) counterpart. However, inevitably these motors soon begin to fail with time due to mechanical, electrical or thermal stress hence the need for condition monitoring (CM). Condition monitoring systems help keep machines running productively by detecting potential equipment failures before it actually fails. Many condition monitoring methods exist on the market including vibration monitoring; acoustic emission monitoring, thermal monitoring, chemical monitoring, current monitoring but most of these methods require additional sensors and expensive data acquisition system on top of a specialise software tool. This all increases the cost of ownership and maintenance. For more efficient monitoring of induction motor drive systems, this research investigates an innovative remote monitoring system using existing data available in AC drives based on AC motor operating process. This research uses standard automation components already present in most automated control systems. A remote data communication platform is developed, allowing access to the control data remotely over a wireless network and internet using PLC and SCADA system. Remote machine condition monitoring is not a new idea but its application to machine monitoring based on power supply parameters indirectly measured by an inverter is new. To evaluate the basic performance of the platform, the monitoring of shaft misalignment, a typical fault in mechanical system is investigated using an in-house gearbox test rig. It has resulted in a model based detection method based on different speed and load settings against the motor current feedback read by the inverter. The results have demonstrated that the platform is reliable and effective. In addition the monitoring method can be employed to detect and diagnose different degrees of misalignment in real time. This dissertation has major contributions to knowledge which includes: Understanding of real life machine condition monitoring problems for this application, including use of wireless sensor, communication over Industrial Ethernet and network security. The use of standard automation components (PLC and SCADA) in machine condition monitoring. MSc Research (Engineering) Thesis x An improved gearbox test rig platform which has the capability of remote control, acquiring and transferring data for monitoring induction machine drive system. The presented work shows that any machine using automated components such as PLC and SCADA and incorporating motor drive systems and other actuators has the potential to use the automated components for control, condition monitoring and reporting but this will require more tests to be done using the proposed platform

Evolution and Modern Approaches for Thermal Analysis of Electrical Machines

In this paper, the authors present an extended survey on the evolution and the modern approaches in the thermal analysis of electrical machines. The improvements and the new techniques proposed in the last decade are analyzed in depth and compared in order to highlight the qualities and defects of each. In particular, thermal analysis based on lumped-parameter thermal network, finite-element analysis, and computational fluid dynamics are considered in this paper. In addition, an overview of the problems linked to the thermal parameter determination and computation is proposed and discussed. Taking into account the aims of this paper, a detailed list of books and papers is reported in the references to help researchers interested in these topics

Embedded Sensors and Controls to Improve Component Performance and Reliability Conceptual Design Report

The objective of this project is to demonstrate improved reliability and increased performance made possible by deeply embedding instrumentation and controls (I&C) in nuclear power plant (NPP) components and systems. The project is employing a highly instrumented canned rotor, magnetic bearing, fluoride salt pump as its I&C technology demonstration platform. I&C is intimately part of the basic millisecond-by-millisecond functioning of the system; treating I&C as an integral part of the system design is innovative and will allow significant improvement in capabilities and performance. As systems become more complex and greater performance is required, traditional I&C design techniques become inadequate and more advanced I&C needs to be applied. New I&C techniques enable optimal and reliable performance and tolerance of noise and uncertainties in the system rather than merely monitoring quasistable performance. Traditionally, I&C has been incorporated in NPP components after the design is nearly complete; adequate performance was obtained through over-design. By incorporating I&C at the beginning of the design phase, the control system can provide superior performance and reliability and enable designs that are otherwise impossible. This report describes the progress and status of the project and provides a conceptual design overview for the platform to demonstrate the performance and reliability improvements enabled by advanced embedded I&C

Self-starting interior permanent magnet motor drive for electric submersible pumps

The interior permanent magnet (IPM) motor drive has evolved as the most energy efficient technology for modern motion control applications. Electric submersible pumps (ESPs) are electric motor driven fluid recovery systems. ESPs are widely used for producing oil and gas from deep downhole reservoirs. Standard ESPs are driven by classical squirrel cage induction motors (IMs) due to its self-starting capability from a balanced 3-phase ac excitation, ruggedness, simplicity, low cost and wide scale availability. Although there has been a tremendous growth in the design and development of highly efficient and reliable IPM motors for traction drive systems, application of the IPM motor technology in ESPs is still in its infancy due to challenges associated with the design and control of IPM motors. In this thesis, a new self-starting, efficient and reliable IPM motor drive technology is proposed for ESP systems to extend their efficiency, longevity and performance. This thesis investigates two different types of self-starting interior permanent magnet (IPM) motors: cage-equipped IPM motors known as line-start IPM motors and a new type of hybrid self-starting motors called hysteresis IPM motors. The limited synchronization capability of line-start IPM motors for high inertial loads is explained in this thesis. To overcome the starting and synchronization problems associated with line-start IPM motors, a new type of hybrid hysteresis IPM motor is proposed in this thesis. Equivalent circuit modeling and finite element analysis of hysteresis IPM motors are carried out in this thesis. A prototype 2.5 kW hysteresis IPM motor is constructed and experimentally tested in the laboratory. In order to limit the inrush current during starting, a stable soft starter has been designed, simulated and implemented for variable speed operations of the motor. The simulation and experimental results are presented and analyzed in this thesis. Self-starting IPM motors suffer from hunting induced torsional oscillations. Electric submersible pumps are vulnerable against sustained hunting and can experience premature failures. In this thesis, a novel stator current signature based diagnostic system for detection of torsional oscillations in IPM motor drives is proposed. The diagnostic system is non-intrusive, fast and suitable for remote condition monitoring of an ESP drive system. Finally, a position sensorless control technique is developed for an IPM motor drive operated from an offshore power supply. The proposed technique can reliably start and stabilize an IPM motor using a back-emf estimation based sensorless controller. The efficacy of the developed sensorless control technique is investigated for a prototype 3-phase, 6-pole, 480V, 10-HP submersible IPM motor drive. In summary, this thesis carried out modeling, analysis and control of different types of self-starting IPM motors to assess their viability for ESP drive systems. Different designs of self-starting IPM motors are presented in this thesis. In future, a fully scalable self-starting IPM motor drive will be designed and manufactured that can meet the industrial demands for high power, highly reliable and super-efficient ESP systems

Embedded Sensors and Controls to Improve Component Performance and Reliability: Conceptual Design Report

The overall project objective is to demonstrate improved reliability and increased performance made possible by deeply embedding instrumentation and controls (I&C) in nuclear power plant components. The project is employing a highly instrumented canned rotor, magnetic bearing, fluoride salt pump as its I&C technology demonstration vehicle. The project s focus is not primarily on pump design, but instead is on methods to deeply embed I&C within a pump system. However, because the I&C is intimately part of the basic millisecond-by-millisecond functioning of the pump, the I&C design cannot proceed in isolation from the other aspects of the pump. The pump will not function if the characteristics of the I&C are not embedded within the design because the I&C enables performance of the basic function rather than merely monitoring quasi-stable performance. Traditionally, I&C has been incorporated in nuclear power plant (NPP) components after their design is nearly complete; adequate performance was obtained through over-design. This report describes the progress and status of the project and provides a conceptual design overview for the embedded I&C pump