On-line Structural Integrity Monitoring and Defect Diagnosis of Steam Generators Using Analysis of Guided Acoustic Waves

Integrity monitoring and flaw diagnostics of flat beams and tubular structures was investigated in this research using guided acoustic signals. The primary objective was to study the feasibility of using imbedded sensors for monitoring steam generator and heat exchanger tubing. A piezo-sensor suite was deployed to activate and collect Lamb wave signals that propagate along metallic specimens. The dispersion curves of Lamb waves along plate and tubular structures were generated through numerical analysis. Several advanced techniques were explored to extract representative features from acoustic time series. Among them, the Hilbert-Huang transform (HHT) is a recently developed technique for the analysis of non-linear and transient signals. A moving window method was introduced to generate the local peak characters from acoustic time series, and a zooming window technique was developed to localize the structural flaws. The dissertation presents the background of the analysis of acoustic signals acquired from piezo-electric transducers for structural defect monitoring. A comparison of the use of time-frequency techniques, including the Hilbert-Huang transform, is presented. It also presents the theoretical study of Lamb wave propagation in flat beams and tubular structures, and the need for mode separation in order to effectively perform defect diagnosis. The results of an extensive experimental study of detection, location, and isolation of structural defects in flat aluminum beams and brass tubes are presented. The time-frequency analysis and pattern recognition techniques were combined for classifying structural defects in brass tubes. Several types of flaws in brass tubes were tested, both in the air and in water. The techniques also proved to be effective under background/process noise. A detailed theoretical analysis of Lamb wave propagation was performed and simulations were carried out using the finite element software system ABAQUS. This analytical study confirmed the behavior of the acoustic signals acquired from the experimental studies. The results of this research showed the feasibility of on-line detection of small structural flaws by the use of transient and nonlinear acoustic signal analysis, and its implementation by the proper design of a piezo-electric transducer suite. The techniques developed in this research would be applicable to civil structures and aerospace structures

MED and WPT based technique for bearings fault detection

A new technique is proposed in this work for fault detection in rolling element bearings, which is based on minimum entropy deconvolution (MED), wavelet packet decomposition (WPT) and envelop analysis. Firstly, the collected vibration signal is preprocessed to highlight defect-related impulses, and a new indicator named envelope spectra sparsity (ESS) is proposed to automatically select the filter length of MED. Then the preprocessed signal is decomposed into WPT nodes, and the most sensitive node containing fault-related information are selected from all the nodes to improve the accuracy of the fault detection. Sparsity of wavelet packet nodes signal (SWPN) is proposed in this step as a measure indicator. Lastly the power spectrum is used to highlight the bearing fault characteristic frequencies. The effectiveness of the proposed AMED-WPT technique in feature extraction and analysis is verified by a series of experimental tests corresponding to different bearing conditions

A proposal of a technique for correlating defect dimensions to vibration amplitude in bearing monitoring

The capability of early stage detection of a defect is gaining more and more importance because it can help the maintenance process, the cost reduction and the reliability of the systems. The increment of vibration amplitude is a well-known method for evaluating the damage of a component, but it is sometimes difficult to understand the exact level of damage. In other words, the amplitude of vibration cannot be directly connected to the dimension of the defect. In the present paper, based on a non-Hertzian contact algorithm, the spectrum of the pressure distribution in the contact surface between the race and the rolling element is evaluated. Such spectrum is then compared with the acquired spectrum of a vibration response of a defected bearing. The bearing vibration pattern was previously analyzed with monitoring techniques to extract all the damage information. The correlation between the spectrum of the pressure distribution in the defected contact surface and the analyzed spectrum of the damaged bearing highlights a strict relationship. By using that analysis, a precise correlation between defect aspect and dimension and vibration level can be addressed to estimate the level of damaging

Rolling contact fatigue failures in silicon nitride and their detection

The project investigates the feasibility of using sensor-based detection and processing systems to provide a reliable means of monitoring rolling contact fatigue (RCF) wear failures of silicon nitride in hybrid bearings. To fulfil this investigation, a decision was made early in the project to perform a series of hybrid rolling wear tests using a twin disc machine modified for use on hybrid bearing elements.The initial part of the thesis reviews the current understanding of the general wear mechanisms and RCF with a specific focus to determine the appropriate methods for their detection in hybrid bearings. The study focusses on vibration, electrostatic and acoustic emission (AE) techniques and reviews their associated sensing technologies currently deployed with a view of adapting them for use in hybrids. To provide a basis for the adaptation, an understanding of the current sensor data enhancement and feature extraction methods is presented based on a literature review.The second part describes the test equipment, its modifications and instrumentation required to capture and process the vibration, electrostatic and AE signals generated in hybrid elements. These were identified in an initial feasibility test performed on a standard twin disc machine. After a detailed description of the resulting equipment, the thesis describes the calibration tests aimed to provide base data for the development of the signal processing methods.The development of the signal processing techniques is described in detail for each of the sensor types. Time synchronous averaging (TSA) technique is used to identify the location of the signal sources along the surfaces of the specimens and the signals are enhanced by additional filtering techniques.The next part of the thesis describes the main hybrid rolling wear tests; it details the selection of the run parameters and the samples seeded with surface cracks to cover a variety of situations, the method of execution of each test run, and the techniques to analyse the results.The research establishes that two RCF fault types are produced in the silicon nitride rolling element reflecting essentially different mechanisms in their distinct and separate development; i) cracks, progressing into depth and denoted in this study as C-/Ring crack Complex (CRC) and ii) Flaking, progressing primarily on the surface by spalls. Additionally and not reported in the literature, an advanced stage of the CRC fault type composed of multiple and extensive c-cracks is interpreted as the result of induced sliding in these runs. In general, having reached an advanced stage, both CRC and Flaking faults produce significant wear in the steel counterface through abrasion, plastic deformation or 3-body abrasion in at least three possible ways, all of which are described in details

Bearing incipient fault diagnosis based upon maximal spectral kurtosis TQWT and group sparsity total variation denoising approach

Localized faults in rolling bearing tend to result in periodic shocks and thus arouse periodic responses in the vibration signal. In this paper, a novel fault diagnosis method based on maximal spectral kurtosis tunable Q-factor wavelet transformation (TQWT) and group sparsity total variation denoising (GS-TVD) is proposed to address the issue of bearing incipient failure. Firstly, the range of Q-factor was pre-selected according to the spectral distribution of impulse component, and bearing vibration signal was transformed by the TQWT method. Then, the spectral kurtosis of each scale transform coefficients was calculated, and the optimal Q-factor and decomposition scale can be selected according to the kurtosis maximum principle. In order to remove the interference components and high-frequency noise from the reconstructed vibration signal generated by inverse TQWT, the GS-TVD approach is employed, thus the cyclic periodicity characteristic and transient impulses can be detected obviously. The two cases experimental results indicate that the proposed technique is more effective and applicable for bearing incipient fault diagnosis compared with traditional method

Bearing fault diagnosis and degradation analysis based on improved empirical mode decomposition and maximum correlated kurtosis deconvolution

Detecting periodic impulse signal (PIS) is the core of bearing fault diagnosis. Earlier fault detected, earlier maintenance actions can be implemented. On the other hand, remaining useful life (RUL) prediction provides important information when the maintenance should be conducted. However, good degradation features are the prerequisite for effective RUL prediction. Therefore, this paper mainly concerns earlier fault detection and degradation feature extraction for bearing. Maximum correlated kurtosis deconvolution (MCKD) can enhance PIS produced by bearing fault. Whereas, it only achieve good effect when bearing has severe fault. On the contrary, PIS produced by bearing weak fault is always masked by heavy noise and cannot be enhanced by MCKD. In order to resolve this problem, a revised empirical mode decomposition (EMD) algorithm is used to denoise bearing fault signal before MCKD processing. In revised EMD algorithm, a new recovering algorithm is used to resolve mode mixing problem existed in traditional EMD and it is superior to ensemble EMD. For degradation analysis, correlated kurtosis (CK) value is used as degradation indicator to reflect health condition of bearing. Except of theory analysis, simulated bearing fault data, injected bearing fault data, real bearing fault data and bearing degradation data are used to verify the proposed method. Simulated bearing fault data is used to explain the existed problems. Then, injected bearing fault data and real bearing fault data are used to demonstrate the effectiveness of proposed method for fault diagnosis. Finally, bearing degradation data is used to verify the degradation feature CK extracted based on proposed method. All these case studies show the effectiveness of proposed fault diagnosis and degradation tracking method

A tutorial review on time-frequency analysis of non-stationary vibration signals with nonlinear dynamics applications

Time-frequency analysis (TFA) for mechanical vibrations in non-stationary operations is the main subject of this article, concisely written to be an introducing tutorial comparing different time-frequency techniques for non-stationary signals. The theory was carefully exposed and complemented with sample applications on mechanical vibrations and nonlinear dynamics. A particular phenomenon that is also observed in non-stationary systems is the Sommerfeld effect, which occurs due to the interaction between a non-ideal energy source and a mechanical system. An application through TFA for the characterization of the Sommerfeld effect is presented. The techniques presented in this article are applied in synthetic and experimental signals of mechanical systems, but the techniques presented can also be used in the most diverse applications and also in the numerical solution of differential equation

An Integrated Framework of Drivetrain Degradation Assessment and Fault Localization for Offshore Wind Turbines

As wind energy proliferates in onshore and offshore applications, it has become significantly important to predict wind turbine downtime and maintain operation uptime to ensure maximal yield. Two types of data systems have been widely adopted for monitoring turbine health condition: supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) and condition monitoring system (CMS). Provided that research and development have focused on advancing analytical techniques based on these systems independently, an intelligent model that associates information from both systems is necessary and beneficial. In this paper, a systematic framework is designed to integrate CMS and SCADA data and assess drivetrain degradation over its lifecycle. Information reference and advanced feature extraction techniques are employed to procure heterogeneous health indicators. A pattern recognition algorithm is used to model baseline behavior and measure deviation of current behavior, where a Self-organizing Map (SOM) and minimum quantization error (MQE) method is selected to achieve degradation assessment. Eventually, the computation and ranking of component contribution to the detected degradation offers component-level fault localization. When validated and automated by various applications, the approach is able to incorporate diverse data resources and output actionable information to advise predictive maintenance with precise fault information. The approach is validated on a 3 MW offshore turbine, where an incipient fault is detected well before existing system shuts down the unit. A radar chart is used to illustrate the fault localization result

Advanced techniques for aircraft bearing diagnostics

The task is the creation of a method able to diagnose and monitor bearings healthy, mainly in case of varying external conditions. The ability of the technique is verified through data acquisition on a laboratory test rig, where various operating conditions could be checked (load, speed, temperature). Signal processing techniques and data mining techniques are applied to analyse the data