Method and apparatus for equipment health monitoring

• US 7,536,276 B2
• Filed: 03/05/2007
• Issued: 05/19/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 07/27/2006
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Siemens Industry Incorporated (Siemens AG)
• Original Assignee: Siemens Building Technologies Incorporated (Siemens AG)
• Inventors: Pearson, Scott Allan
• Primary Examiner(s): Nghiem; Michael P.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Khuu; Cindy H
• Application Number:
  US11/681,946
• Publication Number:
  US 20080027568A1
• Time in Patent Office: 806 Days
• Field of Search: 702/183
• US Class Current: 702/183
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 23/0227 Qualitative history assessment, whereby the type of data acted upon, e.g. waveforms, images or patterns, is not relevant, e.g. rule based assessment; if-then decisions

Abstract

The present invention provides for monitoring the health of a system. In one embodiment, a method includes storing benchmark data in a memory, storing a second plurality of system data indicative of system conditions during system operations, determining from the second plurality of system data that the system was operating at a steady state capacity level during at least one sample window of the system operations, associating the steady state capacity level of the at least one sample window with the benchmark data, retrieving first health data for parameters associated with a first health condition from the first plurality of system data, retrieving second health data for parameters associated with the first health condition from the second plurality of system data that were obtained during the at least one sample window, comparing the health data and determining if the second health data is indicative of a health condition.

Claims

1. A system for monitoring the health of a system comprising:

a plurality of sensors for obtaining a plurality of data associated with at least one health condition of the system;

a memory for storing the plurality of data and commands, wherein the commands in the memory comprise commands to

store, for each of a plurality of system capacity levels, first steady state data for a plurality of parameters associated with the at least one health condition of the system,

obtain normal operations data corresponding to the plurality of parameters during a plurality of sample windows during steady state conditions of the system,

associate the normal operations data with the first steady state data based upon a sample window system capacity level for each of the plurality of sample windows,

compare, for each of the plurality of parameters, the normal operations data with the associated first steady state data, and

display the results of the comparison; and

a processor for executing the commands.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one health condition of the system comprises one or more of:

noncondensables in a chiller system;

low refrigerant;

oil in an evaporator;

fouled condenser tubes;

fouled evaporator tubes;

low condenser water flow rate;

low chilled water flow rate;

water bypassing condenser tubes; and

water bypassing evaporator tubes.

3. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a network operably connecting the plurality of sensors and the processor for communicating the plurality of data associated with the at least one health condition of the system to the processor.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein:

the commands in the memory for comparing comprise commands to identify each of the plurality of sample windows wherein the total number of parameters compared is the same as the total number of parameters indicative of the at least one health condition, and

determine the percentage of the plurality of sample windows identified for a plurality of selected intervals; and

the commands in the memory for displaying comprise commands to

display, for a selected timeframe, the percentage of the plurality of sample windows identified for each of the plurality of selected intervals.