MACHINERY FACILITY CONDITION MONITORING METHOD AND SYSTEM AND ABNORMALITY DIAGNOSIS SYSTEM

• US 20070118333A1
• Filed: 12/27/2006
• Published: 05/24/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 08/30/2002
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: NSK Limited
• Original Assignee: NSK Limited
• Inventors: Sahara, Juntaro, Miyasaka, Takanori, Aramaki, Hirotoshi, Mutou, Yasushi
• Application Number:
  US11/616,723
• Publication Number:
  US 20070118333A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 702/183
• CPC Class Codes: B61F 15/20 Details
• CPC Class Codes: B61K 9/04 Detectors for indicating the overheating of axle bearings and the like, e.g. associated with the brake system for applying the brakes in case of a fault
• CPC Class Codes: F03D 80/70 Bearing or lubricating arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: F05B 2260/80 Diagnostics
• CPC Class Codes: F16C 19/386 in O-arrangement
• CPC Class Codes: F16C 19/52 with devices affected by abnormal or undesired conditions
• CPC Class Codes: F16C 2326/10 Railway vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: F16C 2360/31 Wind motors
• CPC Class Codes: G01M 13/045 Acoustic or vibration analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G01M 17/10 Suspensions, axles or wheels
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 2291/02881 Temperature
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 2291/2696 Wheels, Gears, Bearings
• CPC Class Codes: Y02E 10/72 Wind turbines with rotation axis in wind direction

Abstract

An abnormality diagnosis system for diagnosing a presence or absence of an abnormality of a bearing unit for a railway vehicle axle, comprises a sensing/processing portion for outputting a signal generated from the bearing unit as an electric signal, a calculating/processing portion for making an abnormality diagnosis of the bearing unit based on an output of the sensing/processing portion, a result outputting portion for outputting a decision result of the calculating/processing portion, and a controlling/processing portion for feeding back a control signal to a control system of the railway vehicle based on the decision result.

Claims

1. A machinery facility abnormality diagnosis system for sensing a presence or absence of an abnormality of a sliding member or a rotating body in a machinery facility, comprising:

a sensor unit having one of plural sensing elements for sensing a signal emitted from the machinery facility; and

a calculating/processing portion for executing a calculating process to decide the presence or absence of the abnormality in the machinery facility based on an output of the sensing element;

wherein the calculating/processing portion is composed of a microcomputer.

2. A machinery facility abnormality diagnosis system according to claim 1, wherein the sensor unit is incorporated into the sliding member or the rotating body.

3. A machinery facility abnormality diagnosis system according to claim 2, wherein the microcomputer is fitted to the sliding member or the rotating body or a mechanism parts that supports the sliding member or the rotating body.

4. A machinery facility abnormality diagnosis system according to claim 1, wherein the microcomputer and the sensor unit are mounted on a single device board, and are fitted to the sliding member or the rotating body or a mechanism parts that supports the sliding member or the rotating body as a single processing unit.

5. A machinery facility abnormality diagnosis system according to claim 1, wherein the calculating/processing portion is installed in a single casing.

6. A machinery facility abnormality diagnosis system according to claim 5, wherein the sensor unit is arranged integrally in the casing.

7. A machinery facility abnormality diagnosis system according to claim 1, wherein the sensing element senses at least one of temperature, vibration displacement, vibration speed, vibration acceleration, force, distortion, acoustic, acoustic emission, ultrasonic waves, and rotation speed.

8. A machinery facility abnormality diagnosis system according to claim 1, wherein the calculating/processing portion includes central processing unit, amplifier, analog/digital converter, filter, comparator, pulse counter, timer, interruption controller, ROM, RRAM, digital/analog converter, communication module, and external interface.

9. A machinery facility abnormality diagnosis system according to claim 1, wherein the calculating/processing portion executes at least one process or more of calculation of feature parameters of a standard deviation and a peak factor, envelope detection, FFT, filtering, wavelet transform, short-time FFT, calculation of a feature frequency due to a defect of the rotating body and comparison/decision.

10. A bearing unit including an inner ring having an inner ring raceway surface, an outer ring having an outer ring raceway surface, a plurality of rolling elements arranged relatively rotatably between the inner ring raceway surface and the outer ring raceway surface, and a retainer for holding rollably the rolling elements, whereby a bearing to which a radial load is applied is arranged in a bearing housing,

the bearing unit comprising:

an abnormality sensing means provided in a loading range of the bearing housing, for sensing an abnormality from at least one selected from a vibration sensor and a temperature sensor installed/fixed in a single case.

11. A bearing unit according to claim 10, wherein a flat portion is provided to a part of an outer peripheral surface of the bearing housing on a loading range side, and the abnormality sensing means is fixed to the flat portion.

12. A bearing unit according to claim 11, wherein the abnormality sensing means is arranged on an outer diameter portion of the bearing housing on the loading range side in a center portion of a bearing width.

13. A bearing unit according to claim 10, wherein the abnormality sensing means is arranged on an outer diameter portion of the bearing housing on the loading range side in a width area of the inner ring raceway surface or the outer ring raceway surface.

14. A bearing unit according to claim 10, wherein a case of the abnormality sensing means has a signal carrying means that sends out a sensed signal, and a decision result outputting portion that decides a presence or absence of the abnormality based on the signal sent out via the signal carrying means and output a decision result.

15. A bearing unit according to claim 10, wherein the abnormality sensing means is embedded/fixed on a recess portion formed on the bearing housing, and then secured by molding a clearance between the abnormality sensing means and the recess portion.

16. A bearing unit according to claim 15, wherein the abnormality sensing means is fixed to the recess portion via a spacer.