Electrical Signature Analysis of Synchronous Motors Under Some Mechanical Anomalies

Electrical Signature Analysis (ESA) has been introduced for some time to investigate the electrical anomalies of electric machines, especially for induction motors. More recently hints of using such an approach to analyze mechanical anomalies have appeared in the literature. Among them, some articles cover synchronous motors usually being employed to improve the power factor, drive green vehicles and reciprocating compressors or pumps with higher efficiency. Similarly with induction motors, the common mechanical anomalies of synchronous motor being analyzed using the ESA are air-gap eccentricity and single point bearing defects. However torsional effects, which are usually induced by torsional vibration of rotors and by generalized roughness bearing defects, have seldom been investigated using the ESA. This work presents an analytical method for ESA of rotor torsional vibration and an experimentally demonstrated approach for ESA of generalized roughness bearing defects. The torsional vibration of a shaft assembly usually induces rotor speed fluctuations resulting from the excitations in the electromagnetic (EM) or load torque. Actually, there is strong coupling within the system which is dynamically dependent on the interactions between the electromagnetic air-gap torque of the synchronous machine and the rotordynamics of the rotor shaft assembly. Typically this problem is solved as a one-way coupling by the unidirectional load transfer method, which is based on predetermined or assumed EM or load profile. It ignores the two-way interactions, especially during a start-up transient. In this work, a coupled equivalent circuit method is applied to reflect this coupling, and the simulation results show the significance of the proposed method by the practical case study of Electric Submersible Pump (ESP) system. The generalized roughness bearing anomaly is linked to load torque ripples which can cause speed oscillations, while being related to current signature by phase modulation. Considering that the induced characteristic signature is usually subtle broadband changes in the current spectrum, this signature is easily affected by input power quality variations, machine manufacturing imperfections and the interaction of both. A signal segmentation technique is introduced to isolate the influence of these disturbances and improve the effectiveness of applying the ESA for this kind of bearing defects. Furthermore, an improved experimental procedure is employed to closely resemble naturally occurring degradation of bearing, while isolating the influence of shaft currents on the signature of bearing defects during the experiments. The results show that the proposed method is effective in analyzing the generalized roughness bearing anomaly in synchronous motors

Vestas V90-3MW Wind Turbine Gearbox Health Assessment Using a Vibration-Based Condition Monitoring System

Reliable monitoring for the early fault diagnosis of gearbox faults is of great concern for the wind industry.This paper presents a novel approach for health condition monitoring (CM) and fault diagnosis in wind turbine gearboxes using vibration analysis. This methodology is based on amachine learning algorithm that generates a baseline for the identification of deviations fromthe normal operation conditions of the turbine and the intrinsic characteristic-scale decomposition (ICD) method for fault type recognition. Outliers picked up during the baseline stage are decomposed by the ICD method to obtain the product components which reveal the fault information.The new methodology proposed for gear and bearing defect identification was validated by laboratory and field trials, comparing well with the methods reviewed in the literature

Development of new fault detection methods for rotating machines (roller bearings)

Abstract Early fault diagnosis of roller bearings is extremely important for rotating machines, especially for high speed, automatic and precise machines. Many research efforts have been focused on fault diagnosis and detection of roller bearings, since they constitute one the most important elements of rotating machinery. In this study a combination method is proposed for early damage detection of roller bearing. Wavelet packet transform (WPT) is applied to the collected data for denoising and the resulting clean data are break-down into some elementary components called Intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) using Ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) method. The normalized energy of three first IMFs are used as input for Support vector machine (SVM) to recognize whether signals are sorting out from healthy or faulty bearings. Then, since there is no robust guide to determine amplitude of added noise in EEMD technique, a new Performance improved EEMD (PIEEMD) is proposed to determine the appropriate value of added noise. A novel feature extraction method is also proposed for detecting small size defect using Teager-Kaiser energy operator (TKEO). TKEO is applied to IMFs obtained to create new feature vectors as input data for one-class SVM. The results of applying the method to acceleration signals collected from an experimental bearing test rig demonstrated that the method can be successfully used for early damage detection of roller bearings. Most of the diagnostic methods that have been developed up to now can be applied for the case stationary working conditions only (constant speed and load). However, bearings often work at time-varying conditions such as wind turbine supporting bearings, mining excavator bearings, vehicles, robots and all processes with run-up and run-down transients. Damage identification for bearings working under non-stationary operating conditions, especially for early/small defects, requires the use of appropriate techniques, which are generally different from those used for the case of stationary conditions, in order to extract fault-sensitive features which are at the same time insensitive to operational condition variations. Some methods have been proposed for damage detection of bearings working under time-varying speed conditions. However, their application might increase the instrumentation cost because of providing a phase reference signal. Furthermore, some methods such as order tracking methods still can be applied when the speed variation is limited. In this study, a novel combined method based on cointegration is proposed for the development of fault features which are sensitive to the presence of defects while in the same time they are insensitive to changes in the operational conditions. It does not require any additional measurements and can identify defects even for considerable speed variations. The signals acquired during run-up condition are decomposed into IMFs using the performance improved EEMD method. Then, the cointegration method is applied to the intrinsic mode functions to extract stationary residuals. The feature vectors are created by applying the Teager-Kaiser energy operator to the obtained stationary residuals. Finally, the feature vectors of the healthy bearing signals are utilized to construct a separating hyperplane using one-class support vector machine. Eventually the proposed method was applied to vibration signals measured on an experimental bearing test rig. The results verified that the method can successfully distinguish between healthy and faulty bearings even if the shaft speed changes dramatically

Fault detection and diagnosis of rotating machinery using modified particle filter

In order to effectively monitor condition and detect fault types of high nonlinear system, and extract the features of system state under strong noise background, this paper proposes a novel fault detection and diagnosis (FDD) method based on modified particle filter (PF). The artificial neural network is incorporated in PF for adaptively adjusting weight of particle. In the modified PF, the large weight particles are split into several small weight particles, the particles with smaller weight is adjusted by using artificial neural network. By which the particles in the low probability density region are adjusted to the high probability density region, and the problem of particle leanness is solved effectively. Moreover, this paper also uses time-varying auto regressive (TVAR) and Akaike information criterion (AIC) methods to establish state space model for state estimation. Finally, the proposed method is implemented for fault diagnosis on a roller bearing. Good results are obtained, and the bearing faults, such as the outer race, the inner race and the roller element defects, have been effectively discriminated

Surveillance vibratoire des machines tournantes en régime non-stationnaires

In the last decades, vibration-based condition monitoring of rotating machine has gained special interest providing an efficient aid for maintenance in the industry. Nowadays, many efficient techniques are well-established, rooted on powerful tools offered in particular by the theory of cyclostationary processes. However, all these techniques rely on the assump-tion of constant— or possibly fluctuating but stationary— operating regime (i.e. speed and/or load). Unfortunately, most monitored machines used in the industry operate under nonstationary regimes in order to fulfill the task for which they have been designed. In this case, these techniques fail in analyzing the produced vibration signals. This issue, therefore, has occupied the scientific committee in the last decade and some sophisticated signal processing techniques have been conceived to deal with regime variability. But these works remain limited, dispersed and generally not supported by theoretical frameworks. The principal goal of this thesis is to partially fill in this gap on the basis of a theoretical formalization of the subject and a systematic development of new dedicated signal processing tools. In this work, the nonstationarity of the regime is confined to that of the speed— i.e. variable speed and constant load, assumed to be known a priori. In order to reach this goal, the adopted methodology consists in extending the cyclostationary framework together with its dedicated tools. We have elaborated this strategy by distinguishing two types of signatures. The first type includes deterministic waveforms known as first-order cyclostationary. The proposed solution consists in generalizing the first-order cyclostationary class to the more general first-order cyclo-non-stationary class which enfolds speed-varying deterministic signals. The second type includes random periodically-correlated waveforms known as second-order cyclostationary. Three different but complementary visions have been proposed to deal with the changes induced by the nonstationarity of the operating speed. The first one adopts an angle\time cyclostationary approach, the second one adopts an envelope-based solution and the third one adopts a (second-order) cyclo-non-stationary approach. Many tools have been conceived whose performances have been successfully tested on simulated and real vibration signals.Dans les dernières décennies, la surveillance vibratoire des machines tournantes a acquis un intérêt particulier fournissant une aide efficace pour la maintenance dans l'industrie. Aujourd'hui, de nombreuses techniques efficaces sont bien établies, ancrées sur des outils puissants offerts notamment par la théorie des processus cyclostationnaires. Cependant, toutes ces techniques reposent sur l'hypothèse d’un régime de fonctionnement (c.à.d. vitesse et/ou charge) constant ou éventuellement fluctuant d’une façon stationnaire. Malheureusement, la plupart des machines surveillées dans l'industrie opèrent sous des régimes non stationnaires afin de remplir les tâches pour lesquelles elles ont été conçues. Dans ce cas, ces techniques ne parviennent pas à analyser les signaux vibratoires produits. Ce problème a occupé la communauté scientifique dans la dernière décennie et des techniques sophistiquées de traitement du signal ont été conçues pour faire face à la variabilité du régime. Mais ces tentatives restent limitées, dispersées et généralement peu soutenues par un cadre théorique. Le principal objectif de cette thèse est de combler partiellement cette lacune sur la base d'une formalisation théorique du sujet et d’un développement systématique de nouveaux outils de traitement du signal. Dans ce travail, la non-stationnarité du régime est limitée à celle de la vitesse— c.à.d. vitesse variable et charge constante— supposée connue a priori. Afin d'atteindre cet objectif, la méthodologie adoptée consiste à étendre le cadre cyclostationnaire avec ses outils dédiés. Nous avons élaboré cette stratégie en distinguant deux types de signatures. Le premier type comprend des signaux déterministes connus comme cyclostationnaires au premier ordre. La solution proposée consiste à généraliser la classe cyclostationnaire au premier ordre à la classe cyclo-non-stationnaire au premier ordre qui comprend des signaux déterministes en vitesse variable. Le second type comprend des signaux aléatoires périodiquement corrélés connus comme cyclostationnaires au deuxième ordre. Trois visions différentes mais complémentaires ont été proposées pour traiter les variations induites par la non-stationnarité de la vitesse de fonctionnement. La première adopte une approche cyclostationnaire angle\temps, la seconde une solution basée sur l'enveloppe et la troisième une approche cyclo-non-stationnaire (au second ordre). De nombreux outils ont été conçus dont les performances ont été testées avec succès sur des signaux vibratoires réels et simulés

Machine condition monitoring and fault diagnosis using spectral analysis techniques

There is need to continuously monitor the conditions of complex, expensive and process-critical machinery in order to detect its incipient breakdown as well as to ensure its high performance and operating safety. Depending on the application, several techniques are available for monitoring the condition of a machine. Vibration monitoring of rotating machinery is considered in this paper so as develop a selfdiagnosis tool for monitoring machines’ conditions. To achieve this a vibration fault simulation rig (VFSR) is designed and constructed so as to simulate and analyze some of the most common vibration signals encountered in rotating machinery. Vibration data are collected from the piezoelectric accelerometers placed at locations that provide rigid vibration transmission to them. Both normal and fault signals are analyzed using the singular value decomposition (SVD) algorithm so as to compute the parameters of the auto regressive moving average (ARMA) models. Machine condition monitoring is then based on the AR or ARMA spectra so as to overcome some of the limitations of the fast Fourier transform (FFT) techniques. Furthermore the estimated AR model parameters and the distribution of the singular values can be used in conjunction with the spectral peaks in making comparison between healthy and faulty conditions. Different fault conditions have been successfully simulated and analyzed using the VFSR in this paper. Results of analysis clearly indicate that this method of analysis can be further developed and used for self-diagnosis, predictive maintenance and intelligent-based monitoring

Machine condition monitoring and fault diagnosis using spectral analysis techniques

There is need to continuously monitor the conditions of complex, expensive and process-critical machinery in order to detect its incipient breakdown as well as to ensure its high performance and operating safety. Depending on the application, several techniques are available for monitoring the condition of a machine. Vibration monitoring of rotating machinery is considered in this paper so as develop a selfdiagnosis tool for monitoring machines’ conditions. To achieve this a vibration fault simulation rig (VFSR) is designed and constructed so as to simulate and analyze some of the most common vibration signals encountered in rotating machinery. Vibration data are collected from the piezoelectric accelerometers placed at locations that provide rigid vibration transmission to them. Both normal and fault signals are analyzed using the singular value decomposition (SVD) algorithm so as to compute the parameters of the auto regressive moving average (ARMA) models. Machine condition monitoring is then based on the AR or ARMA spectra so as to overcome some of the limitations of the fast Fourier transform (FFT) techniques. Furthermore the estimated AR model parameters and the distribution of the singular values can be used in conjunction with the spectral peaks in making comparison between healthy and faulty conditions. Different fault conditions have been successfully simulated and analyzed using the VFSR in this paper. Results of analysis clearly indicate that this method of analysis can be further developed and used for self-diagnosis, predictive maintenance and intelligent-based monitoring

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

Fault Detection Analysis in Ball Bearings using Machine Learning Techniques

The Bearing element is very essential component of any rotating equipment. Any defect in the bearings lead to instable performance of the machinery. To avoid such malfunction and breakdown of the machinery equipment due to misalignment is review critically in this research paper and various machine learning techniques to tackle the issue is highlighted. This review article finds the basis for developing an effective system in order to reduce the breakdown of machinery or equipment. Conventional Machine Learning methods, like Artificial neural network, Decision Tree, Random Forest, Support Vector Machines(SVM) have been applied to detecting categorizing fault, while the application of Deep Learning methods has ignited great interest in the industry