Multiple-fault detection methodology based on vibration and current analysis applied to bearings in induction motors and gearboxes on the kinematic chain

© 2016 Juan Jose Saucedo-Dorantes et al. Gearboxes and induction motors are important components in industrial applications and their monitoring condition is critical in the industrial sector so as to reduce costs and maintenance downtimes. There are several techniques associated with the fault diagnosis in rotating machinery; however, vibration and stator currents analysis are commonly used due to their proven reliability. Indeed, vibration and current analysis provide fault condition information by means of the fault-related spectral component identification. This work presents a methodology based on vibration and current analysis for the diagnosis of wear in a gearbox and the detection of bearing defect in an induction motor both linked to the same kinematic chain; besides, the location of the fault-related components for analysis is supported by the corresponding theoretical models. The theoretical models are based on calculation of characteristic gearbox and bearings fault frequencies, in order to locate the spectral components of the faults. In this work, the influence of vibrations over the system is observed by performing motor current signal analysis to detect the presence of faults. The obtained results show the feasibility of detecting multiple faults in a kinematic chain, making the proposed methodology suitable to be used in the application of industrial machinery diagnosis.Postprint (published version

Online Condition Monitoring of Electric Powertrains using Machine Learning and Data Fusion

Safe and reliable operations of industrial machines are highly prioritized in industry. Typical industrial machines are complex systems, including electric motors, gearboxes and loads. A fault in critical industrial machines may lead to catastrophic failures, service interruptions and productivity losses, thus condition monitoring systems are necessary in such machines. The conventional condition monitoring or fault diagnosis systems using signal processing, time and frequency domain analysis of vibration or current signals are widely used in industry, requiring expensive and professional fault analysis team. Further, the traditional diagnosis methods mainly focus on single components in steady-state operations. Under dynamic operating conditions, the measured quantities are non-stationary, thus those methods cannot provide reliable diagnosis results for complex gearbox based powertrains, especially in multiple fault contexts. In this dissertation, four main research topics or problems in condition monitoring of gearboxes and powertrains have been identified, and novel solutions are provided based on data-driven approach. The first research problem focuses on bearing fault diagnosis at early stages and dynamic working conditions. The second problem is to increase the robustness of gearbox mixed fault diagnosis under noise conditions. Mixed fault diagnosis in variable speeds and loads has been considered as third problem. Finally, the limitation of labelled training or historical failure data in industry is identified as the main challenge for implementing data-driven algorithms. To address mentioned problems, this study aims to propose data-driven fault diagnosis schemes based on order tracking, unsupervised and supervised machine learning, and data fusion. All the proposed fault diagnosis schemes are tested with experimental data, and key features of the proposed solutions are highlighted with comparative studies.publishedVersio

Multiple-fault detection and identification scheme based on hierarchical self-organizing maps applied to an electric machine

Strategies of condition monitoring applied to electric motors play an important role in the competitiveness of multiple industrial sectors. However, the risk of faults coexistence in an electric motor and the overlapping of their effects in the considered physical magnitudes represent, currently, a critical limitation to provide reliable diagnosis outcomes. In this regard, additional investigation efforts are required towards high-dimensional data fusion schemes, particularly over the features calculation and features reduction, which represent two decisive stages in such data-driven approaches. In this study, a novel multiple-fault detection and identification methodology supported by a feature-level fusion strategy and a Self-Organizing Maps (SOM) hierarchical structure is proposed. The condition diagnosis as well as the corresponding estimated probability are obtained. Moreover, the proposed method allows the visualization of the results while preserving the underlying physical phenomenon of the system under monitoring. The proposed scheme is performed sequentially; first, a set of statistical-time based features is estimated from different physical magnitudes. Second, a hybrid feature reduction method is proposed, composed by an initial soft feature reduction, based on sequential floating forward selection to remove the less informative features, and followed by a hierarchical SOM structure which reveals directly the diagnosis and probability assessment. The effectiveness of the proposed detection and identification scheme is validated with a complete set of experimental data including healthy and five faulty conditions. The accuracy’s results are compared with classical condition monitoring approaches in order to validate the competency of the proposed method.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Fault Signature Identification for BLDC motor Drive System -A Statistical Signal Fusion Approach

A hybrid approach based on multirate signal processing and sensory data fusion is proposed for the condition monitoring and identification of fault signal signatures used in the Flight ECS (Engine Control System) unit. Though motor current signature analysis (MCSA) is widely used for fault detection now-a-days, the proposed hybrid method qualifies as one of the most powerful online/offline techniques for diagnosing the process faults. Existing approaches have some drawbacks that can degrade the performance and accuracy of a process-diagnosis system. In particular, it is very difficult to detect random stochastic noise due to the nonlinear behavior of valve controller. Using only Short Time Fourier Transform (STFT), frequency leakage and the small amplitude of the current components related to the fault can be observed, but the fault due to the controller behavior cannot be observed. Therefore, a framework of advanced multirate signal and data-processing aided with sensor fusion algorithms is proposed in this article and satisfactory results are obtained. For implementing the system, a DSP-based BLDC motor controller with three-phase inverter module (TMS 320F2812) is used and the performance of the proposed method is validated on real time data.Comment: 7 Pages, 7 figure

Machine Health Monitoring and Fault Diagnosis Techniques Review in Industrial Power-Line Network

The machinery arrangements in industrial environment normally consist of motors of diverse sizes and specifications that are provided power and connected with common power-bus. The power-line could be act as a good source for travelling the signal through power-line network and this can be leave a faulty symptom while inspection of motors. This influence on other neighbouring motors with noisy signal that may present some type of fault condition in healthy motors. Further intricacy arises when this type of signal is propagated on power-line network by motors at different slip speeds, power rating and many faulty motors within the network. This sort of convolution and diversification of signals from multiple motors makes it challenging to measure and accurately relate to a certain motor or specific fault. This chapter presents a critical literature review analysis on machine-fault diagnosis and its related topics. The review covers a wide range of recent literature in this problem domain. A significant related research development and contribution of different areas regarding fault diagnosis and traceability within power-line networks will be discussed in detail throughout this chapter

Machine learning and deep learning based methods toward Industry 4.0 predictive maintenance in induction motors: Α state of the art survey

Purpose: Developments in Industry 4.0 technologies and Artificial Intelligence (AI) have enabled data-driven manufacturing. Predictive maintenance (PdM) has therefore become the prominent approach for fault detection and diagnosis (FD/D) of induction motors (IMs). The maintenance and early FD/D of IMs are critical processes, considering that they constitute the main power source in the industrial production environment. Machine learning (ML) methods have enhanced the performance and reliability of PdM. Various deep learning (DL) based FD/D methods have emerged in recent years, providing automatic feature engineering and learning and thereby alleviating drawbacks of traditional ML based methods. This paper presents a comprehensive survey of ML and DL based FD/D methods of IMs that have emerged since 2015. An overview of the main DL architectures used for this purpose is also presented. A discussion of the recent trends is given as well as future directions for research. Design/methodology/approach: A comprehensive survey has been carried out through all available publication databases using related keywords. Classification of the reviewed works has been done according to the main ML and DL techniques and algorithms Findings: DL based PdM methods have been mainly introduced and implemented for IM fault diagnosis in recent years. Novel DL FD/D methods are based on single DL techniques as well as hybrid techniques. DL methods have also been used for signal preprocessing and moreover, have been combined with traditional ML algorithms to enhance the FD/D performance in feature engineering. Publicly available datasets have been mostly used to test the performance of the developed methods, however industrial datasets should become available as well. Multi-agent system (MAS) based PdM employing ML classifiers has been explored. Several methods have investigated multiple IM faults, however, the presence of multiple faults occurring simultaneously has rarely been investigated. Originality/value: The paper presents a comprehensive review of the recent advances in PdM of IMs based on ML and DL methods that have emerged since 2015Peer Reviewe

Thermography-based methodology for multifault diagnosis on kinematic chain

The procedures for condition monitoring of electromechanical systems are undergoing a reformulation, mainly, due to the current thermographic affordability of infrared cameras to be incorporated in industrial applications. However, high-performing multifault data-driven methodologies must be investigated in order to infer reliable condition information from the thermal distribution of not only electrical motors but also of shafts and couplings. To address this issue, a novel thermography-based methodology is proposed. First, the infrared capture is processed to obtain a thermographic residual image of the kinematic chain. Second, the thermal distribution of the image's regions of interest is characterized by means of statistical features. Finally, a distributed self-organizing map structure is used to model the nominal thermal distribution to subsequently perform a fault detection and identification. The method provides a reliability quantification of the resulting condition assessment in order to avoid misclassifications and identify the actual fault root-causes. The performance and the effectiveness of the proposed methodology is validated experimentally and compared with the classical maximum temperature gradient procedure.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version