Method and apparatus for signal signature analysis for event detection in rotating machinery

• US 20070038392A1
• Filed: 08/10/2005
• Published: 02/15/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 08/10/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: General Electric Company
• Original Assignee: General Electric Company
• Inventors: Yan, Weizhong, Hershey, John, Bonissone, Piero, Iyer, Naresh, Goebel, Kai, Aragones, James, Hatch, Charles
• Granted Patent: US 7,317,994 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 702/56
• CPC Class Codes: G01M 15/12 by monitoring vibrations

Abstract

A method for analyzing vibration including: acquiring a vibration signal; isolating a vibration signal event in the acquired signal; determining a frequency of a damped sinusoid of the vibration signal event, wherein the damped sinusoid characterizes the vibration signal event, and using the characteristic damped sinusoid to identify an occurrence of the vibration signal event in another vibration signal.

Claims

1. A method for analyzing a vibration event comprising:

acquiring a vibration signal;

isolating a vibration signal event in the acquired signal;

determining a natural frequency of the vibration signal event, using a damped sinusoid corresponding to the natural frequency to characterize the vibration signal event, and

using the characteristic damped sinusoid to identify an occurrence of the vibration signal event in another vibration signal.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein determining the frequency of the characteristic damped sinusoid includes identifying a natural frequency of the vibration signal event using a short-term Fourier Transform.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising determining a damping factor for the characteristic damped sinusoid.

4. The method of claim 3 further comprising fitting an exponential function to the vibration signal event to determine the damping factor for the characteristic damped sinusoid.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein fitting the exponential function further comprises comparing exponential functions having various decay factors to a signal envelope of the vibration signal event and selecting one of the decay factors to determine the damping factor.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein comparing exponential functions further comprises determining a sum of squared differences between values of the exponential function at each of several decay factors and corresponding values of the signal envelope, identifying the decay factor corresponding to a smallest sum of the squared differences, and using the identified decay factor to determine the damping factor.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein applying the characteristic damped sinusoid further comprises detecting a shift in a time of the occurrence of the vibration signal event.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein using the characteristic damped sinusoid to identify an occurrence of the vibration signal event includes a wavelet analysis.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein the wavelet analysis includes applying the characteristic damped sinusoid as a mother wavelet.

10. A method for modeling a vibration event comprising:

acquiring a vibration signal generated by a rotating machine;

isolating a vibration signal event in the acquired signal;

determining a natural frequency of the vibration signal event using a short-term Fourier Transform, using a damped sinusoid corresponding to the natural frequency to characterize the vibration signal event, and

using the characteristic damped sinusoid to identify an occurrence of the vibration signal event in another vibration signal.

11. The method of claim 10 further comprises reporting the occurrence of the vibration signal event in another vibration signal.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the report of the vibration signal event is applied to schedule maintenance of the rotating machine.

13. The method of claim 10 wherein applying the sinusoid further comprises detecting a shift in a time of the occurrence of the vibration signal event.

14. The method of claim 10 further comprising determining a damping factor for the characteristic damped sinusoid by fitting an exponential function to the vibration signal event.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein fitting the exponential function further comprises determining a sum of squared differences between values of the exponential function at each of several decay factors and corresponding values of the signal envelope, identifying the decay factor corresponding to a smallest sum of the squared differences, and using the identified decay factor to determine the damping factor.

16. The method of claim 10 wherein determining the frequency of the damped sinusoid includes identifying a natural frequency of the vibration signal event using a short-term Fourier Transform.

17. The method of claim 10 wherein using the characteristic damped sinusoid to identify an occurrence of the vibration signal event includes a wavelet analysis.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein the wavelet analysis includes applying the characteristic damped sinusoid as a mother wavelet.

19. A system for monitoring a rotating machine comprising:

a vibration sensor coupled to the machine, said vibration sensor producing a signal;

a physics based signal analyzer (PBSA) further comprising a signal conditioning and analysis unit and a display and control unit, wherein the signal conditioning and analysis unit generates a characteristic damped sinusoid applied to the signal and identifies vibration events in the signal corresponding to the sinusoid, and wherein the display and control unit generates a display image showing the identified vibration events.

20. The system in claim 19 further comprising a shaft encoder generating a rotational signal indicative of a rotational position of a rotating shaft in the machine and wherein said PBSA correlates the rotational signal and the identified vibration events and displays the correlation between the vibration events and shaft angular position on the display image.

21. The system in claim 19 further comprising a control input to the display and control unit to receive user inputs identifying a signature vibration event to be modeled by the characteristic decayed sinusoid.