No abstract

Morphological analysis is a signal processing method that extracts the local morphological features of a signal by intersecting it with a structuring element (SE). When a bearing suffers from a localized fault, an impulse-type cyclic signal is generated. The amplitude and the cyclic time interval of impacts could reflect the health status of the inspected bearing and the cause of defects, respectively. In this paper, an enhanced morphological analysis called ‘morphogram’ is presented for extracting the cyclic impacts caused by a certain bearing fault. Based on the theory of morphology, the morphogram is realized by simple mathematical operators, including Minkowski addition and subtraction. The morphogram is able to detect all possible fault intervals. The most likely fault-interval-based construction index (CI) is maximized to establish the optimal range of the flat SE for the extraction of bearing fault cyclic features so that the type and cause of bearing faults can be easily determined in a time domain. The morphogram has been validated by simulated bearing fault signals, real bearing faulty signals collected from a laboratorial rotary machine and an industrial bearing fault signal. The results show that the morphogram is able to detect all possible bearing fault intervals. Based on the most likely bearing fault interval shown on the morphogram, the CI is effective in determining the optimal parameters of the flat SE for the extraction of bearing fault cyclic features for bearing fault diagnosis.

No abstract

Slurry pumps, such as oil sand pumps, are widely used in industry to convert electrical energy to slurry potential and kinetic energy. Because of adverse working conditions, slurry pump impellers are prone to suffer wear, which may result in slurry pump breakdowns. To prevent any unexpected breakdowns, slurry pump impeller performance degradation assessment should be immediately conducted to monitor the current health condition and to ensure the safety and reliability of slurry pumps. In this paper, to provide an alternative to the impeller health indicator, an enhanced factor analysis based impeller indicator (EFABII) is proposed. Firstly, a low-pass filter is employed to improve the signal to noise ratios of slurry pump vibration signals. Secondly, redundant statistical features are extracted from the filtered vibration signals. To reduce the redundancy of the statistic features, the enhanced factor analysis is performed to generate new statistical features. Moreover, the statistic features can be automatically grouped and developed a new indicator called EFABII. Data collected from industrial oil sand pumps are used to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The results show that the proposed method is able to track the current health condition of slurry pump impellers.

Automobile component malfunctions are typical causes of many on-road accidents. Proper fault diagnosis conducted on automobile engines helps to prevent accidents by providing early warnings. The instantaneous angular speed (IAS) method, which uses low-cost sensors, has proved useful in diagnosing combustion-related faults in engines. In this paper, we evaluated various types of faults that occur in engines using the IAS method. The method clearly reveals the differences between normal and anomalous temporal waveforms generated during the engine combustion process. The results show that the IAS method is capable of generating quality fault diagnostic results that are comparable with those obtained using expensive and conventional pressure sensors mounted on engines. This method could help prevent catastrophic accidents and minimise the improper consumption of expensive fuel.