The Recovery of Weak Impulsive Signals Based on Stochastic Resonance and Moving Least Squares Fitting

In this paper a stochastic resonance (SR)-based method for recovering weak impulsive signals is developed for quantitative diagnosis of faults in rotating machinery. It was shown in theory that weak impulsive signals follow the mechanism of SR, but the SR produces a nonlinear distortion of the shape of the impulsive signal. To eliminate the distortion a moving least squares fitting method is introduced to reconstruct the signal from the output of the SR process. This proposed method is verified by comparing its detection results with that of a morphological filter based on both simulated and experimental signals. The experimental results show that the background noise is suppressed effectively and the key features of impulsive signals are reconstructed with a good degree of accuracy, which leads to an accurate diagnosis of faults in roller bearings in a run-to failure test

Observer-biased bearing condition monitoring: from fault detection to multi-fault classification

Bearings are simultaneously a fundamental component and one of the principal causes of failure in rotary machinery. The work focuses on the employment of fuzzy clustering for bearing condition monitoring, i.e., fault detection and classification. The output of a clustering algorithm is a data partition (a set of clusters) which is merely a hypothesis on the structure of the data. This hypothesis requires validation by domain experts. In general, clustering algorithms allow a limited usage of domain knowledge on the cluster formation process. In this study, a novel method allowing for interactive clustering in bearing fault diagnosis is proposed. The method resorts to shrinkage to generalize an otherwise unbiased clustering algorithm into a biased one. In this way, the method provides a natural and intuitive way to control the cluster formation process, allowing for the employment of domain knowledge to guiding it. The domain expert can select a desirable level of granularity ranging from fault detection to classification of a variable number of faults and can select a specific region of the feature space for detailed analysis. Moreover, experimental results under realistic conditions show that the adopted algorithm outperforms the corresponding unbiased algorithm (fuzzy c-means) which is being widely used in this type of problems. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Grant number: 145602

Mechanical Wear Debris Feature, Detection, and Diagnosis: A Review

Mechanical debris is an important product of friction wear, which is also a crucial approach to know the running status of a machine. Many studies have been conducted on mechanical debris in related fields such as tribology, instrument, and diagnosis. This paper presents a comprehensive review of these studies, which summarizes wear mechanisms (e.g., abrasive wear, fatigue wear, and adhesive wear) and debris features (e.g., concentration (number), size, morphology, and composition), analyzes detection methods principles (e.g., offline: spectrograph and ferrograph, and online: optical method, inductive method, resistive-capacitive method, and acoustic method), reviews developments of online inductive methods, and investigates the progress of debris-based diagnosis. Finally, several notable problems are discussed for further studies. (C) 2017 Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Wind turbine fault detection and classification by means of image texture analysis

The future of the wind energy industry passes through the use of larger and more flexible wind turbines in remote locations, which are increasingly offshore to benefit stronger and more uniform wind conditions. The cost of operation and maintenance of offshore wind turbines is approximately 15-35% of the total cost. Of this, 80% goes towards unplanned maintenance issues due to different faults in the wind turbine components. Thus, an auspicious way to contribute to the increasing demands and challenges is by applying low-cost advanced fault detection schemes. This work proposes a new method for detection and classification of wind turbine actuators and sensors faults in variable- speed wind turbines. For this purpose, time domain signals acquired from the operating wind turbine are represented as two-dimensional matrices to obtain grayscale digital images. Then, the image pattern recognition is processed getting texture features under a multichannel representation. In this work, four types of texture characteristics are used: statistical, wavelet, granulometric and Gabor features. Next, the most significant ones are selected using the conditional mutual criterion. Finally, the faults are detected and distinguished between them (classified) using an automatic classification tool. In particular, a 10-fold cross-validation is used to obtain a more generalized model and evaluates the classification performance. Coupled non-linear aero-hydro-servo-elastic simulations of a 5MW offshore type wind turbine are carried out in several fault scenarios. The results show a promising methodology able to detect and classify the most common wind turbine faults.Peer ReviewedPreprin

A quantitative diagnosis method for rolling element bearing using signal complexity and morphology filtering

This paper considers a quantitative method for assessment of fault severity of rolling element bearing by means of signal complexity and morphology filtering. The relationship between the complexity and bearing fault severity is explained. The improved morphology filtering is adopted to avoid the ambiguity between severity fault and the pure random noise since both of them will acquire higher complexity value. According to the attenuation signal characteristics of a faulty bearing the artificial immune optimization algorithm with the target of pulse index is used to obtain optimal filtering signal. Furthermore, complexity algorithm is revised to avoid the loss of weak impact signal. After largely removing noise and other unrelated signal components, the complexity value will be mostly affected by the bearing system and therefore may be adopted as a reliable quantitative bearing fault diagnosis method. Application of the proposed approach to the bearing fault signals has demonstrated that the improved morphology filtering and the complexity of signal can be used to adequately evaluate bearing fault severity

Research of dimensionless index for fault diagnosis positioning based on EMD

Dimensionless index as a new theory tool has been applied in fault diagnosis study, which has shown some progress, however, it will cause some interference to the diagnosis results since no considering the influence of other noise jamming signal is given. Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) technique could extract effectively the fault characteristic signal of vibration data. In view of the noise jamming of dimensionless index in analyzing data, dimensionless index processing algorithms based on EMD is proposed. Firstly, EMD method is used to decompose the collected vibration signals, then the first few Intrinsic Mode Functions (IMF) components are obtained which contains the fault characteristic of vibration data, and the effects of other noise signal are removed at the same time. Secondly, fault diagnosis can be achieved by calculating dimensionless parameter values to the IMF components with characteristic signal of vibration data, and obtaining range of characteristic value of their dimensionless index, then diagnosing and analyzing fault characteristics of the equipment. The proposed method is applied to fault diagnosis test analysis of rotating machinery, and the experiment has shown that the proposed method is efficient and effective

Fault Management in DC Microgrids:A Review of Challenges, Countermeasures, and Future Research Trends

The significant benefits of DC microgrids have instigated extensive efforts to be an alternative network as compared to conventional AC power networks. Although their deployment is ever-growing, multiple challenges still occurred for the protection of DC microgrids to efficiently design, control, and operate the system for the islanded mode and grid-tied mode. Therefore, there are extensive research activities underway to tackle these issues. The challenge arises from the sudden exponential increase in DC fault current, which must be extinguished in the absence of the naturally occurring zero crossings, potentially leading to sustained arcs. This paper presents cut-age and state-of-the-art issues concerning the fault management of DC microgrids. It provides an account of research in areas related to fault management of DC microgrids, including fault detection, location, identification, isolation, and reconfiguration. In each area, a comprehensive review has been carried out to identify the fault management of DC microgrids. Finally, future trends and challenges regarding fault management in DC-microgrids are also discussed