Power system fault prediction using artificial neural networks

The medium term goal of the research reported in this paper was the development of a major in-house suite of strategic computer aided network simulation and decision support tools to improve the management of power systems. This paper describes a preliminary research investigation to access the feasibility of using an Artificial Intelligence (AI) method to predict and detect faults at an early stage in power systems. To achieve this goal, an AI based detector has been developed to monitor and predict faults at an early stage on particular sections of power systems. The detector only requires external measurements taken from the input and output nodes of the power system. The AI detection system is capable of rapidly predicting a malfunction within the system . Simulation will normally take place using equivalent circuit representation. Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) are used to construct a hierarchical feed-forward structure which is the most important component in the fault detector. Simulation of a transmission line (2-port circuit ) has already been carried out and preliminary results using this system are promising. This approach provided satisfactory results with accuracy of 95% or higher

Roller element bearing acoustic fault detection using smartphone and consumer microphones

Roller element bearings are a common component and crucial to most rotating machinery; their failure makes up around half of the total machine failures, each with the potential to cause extreme damage, injury and downtime. Fault detection through condition monitoring is of significant importance. This paper demonstrates bearing fault detection using widely accessible consumer audio tools. Audio measurements from a smartphone and a standard USB microphone, and vibration measurements from an accelerometer are collected during tests on an electrical induction machine exhibiting a variety of mechanical bearing anomalies. A peak finding method along with use of trained Support Vector Machines (SVMs) classify the faults. It is shown that the classification rate from both the smartphone and the USB microphone was 95 and 100%, respectively, with the direct physically detected vibration results achieving only 75% classification accuracy. This work opens up the opportunity of using readily affordable and accessible acoustic diagnosis and prognosis for early mechanical anomalies on rotating machines

On Phasor Estimation for Voltage Sags Detection in a Smart Grid Context

International audienceThe advent of smart grids have urged a radical reappraisal of distribution networks and power quality requirements, and effective use of the network are indexed as the most important keys for smart grid expansion and deployment regardless. One of the most efficient ways of effective use of these grids would be to continuously monitor their conditions. This allows for early detection of power quality degeneration facilitating therefore a proactive response, prevent a fault ride-through the renewable power sources, minimizing downtime, and maximizing productivity. In this smart grid context, this paper proposes the evaluation of signal processing tools, namely the Hilbert transform and the linear Kalman filter to estimate voltage phasor for voltage sags detection

Use of COTS functional analysis software as an IVHM design tool for detection and isolation of UAV fuel system faults

This paper presents a new approach to the development of health management solutions which can be applied to both new and legacy platforms during the conceptual design phase. The approach involves the qualitative functional modelling of a system in order to perform an Integrated Vehicle Health Management (IVHM) design – the placement of sensors and the diagnostic rules to be used in interrogating their output. The qualitative functional analysis was chosen as a route for early assessment of failures in complex systems. Functional models of system components are required for capturing the available system knowledge used during various stages of system and IVHM design. MADe™ (Maintenance Aware Design environment), a COTS software tool developed by PHM Technology, was used for the health management design. A model has been built incorporating the failure diagrams of five failure modes for five different components of a UAV fuel system. Thus an inherent health management solution for the system and the optimised sensor set solution have been defined. The automatically generated sensor set solution also contains a diagnostic rule set, which was validated on the fuel rig for different operation modes taking into account the predicted fault detection/isolation and ambiguity group coefficients. It was concluded that when using functional modelling, the IVHM design and the actual system design cannot be done in isolation. The functional approach requires permanent input from the system designer and reliability engineers in order to construct a functional model that will qualitatively represent the real system. In other words, the physical insight should not be isolated from the failure phenomena and the diagnostic analysis tools should be able to adequately capture the experience bases. This approach has been verified on a laboratory bench top test rig which can simulate a range of possible fuel system faults. The rig is fully instrumented in order to allow benchmarking of various sensing solution for fault detection/isolation that were identified using functional analysis

Building fault detection data to aid diagnostic algorithm creation and performance testing.

It is estimated that approximately 4-5% of national energy consumption can be saved through corrections to existing commercial building controls infrastructure and resulting improvements to efficiency. Correspondingly, automated fault detection and diagnostics (FDD) algorithms are designed to identify the presence of operational faults and their root causes. A diversity of techniques is used for FDD spanning physical models, black box, and rule-based approaches. A persistent challenge has been the lack of common datasets and test methods to benchmark their performance accuracy. This article presents a first of its kind public dataset with ground-truth data on the presence and absence of building faults. This dataset spans a range of seasons and operational conditions and encompasses multiple building system types. It contains information on fault severity, as well as data points reflective of the measurements in building control systems that FDD algorithms typically have access to. The data were created using simulation models as well as experimental test facilities, and will be expanded over time