Data acquisition system for condition-based maintenance

• US 8,442,778 B2
• Filed: 11/21/2011
• Issued: 05/14/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 11/16/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Rockwell Collins, Inc. (Rtx Corporation)
• Original Assignee: NRG System Inc
• Inventors: Bechhoefer, Eric R., Taylor, John T.
• Primary Examiner(s): Le, John H
• Application Number:
  US13/301,735
• Publication Number:
  US 20120065901A1
• Time in Patent Office: 540 Days
• Field of Search: 702/34, 702/113, 702/182, 702/189, 702/188, 731/68, 290/44, 290/55, 416/37, 416/40, 700/286, 700/287, 700/291, 714/4.4
• US Class Current: 702/34
• CPC Class Codes: F03D 17/00 Monitoring or testing of wind motors, e.g. diagnostics testing during commissioning of wind motors F03D13/30
• CPC Class Codes: F03D 7/047 characterised by the controller architecture, e.g. multiple processors or data communications
• CPC Class Codes: F05B 2240/96 as part of a wind turbine farm
• CPC Class Codes: F05B 2270/326 Rotor angle
• CPC Class Codes: F05B 2270/332 Maximum loads or fatigue criteria
• CPC Class Codes: F05B 2270/803 Sampling thereof
• CPC Class Codes: G01M 13/00 Testing of machine parts
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 23/0283 Predictive maintenance, e.g. involving the monitoring of a system and, based on the monitoring results, taking decisions on the maintenance schedule of the monitored system; Estimating remaining useful life [RUL] preventive maintenance, i.e. planning maintenance according to the available resources without monitoring the system G06Q10/06
• CPC Class Codes: Y02E 10/72 Wind turbines with rotation axis in wind direction
• CPC Class Codes: Y02P 80/20 using renewable energy

Abstract

Generally, a system and method consistent with the present disclosure may provide a relatively low cost, relatively robust data acquisition and analysis system useful for condition-based maintenance. The system may be useful for condition-based maintenance in industrial applications, e.g., of equipment and/or machinery. The industrial monitoring system may be used, for example, to monitor a condition of rotating machinery, e.g., a wind turbine. The system and method may include data analysis that may be useful for anticipating a need for maintenance, repair and/or replacement of one or more components.

Claims

1. A method of determining an estimate of a remaining useful life of a monitored component of rotating machinery, the method comprising:

providing a data acquisition system mounted on rotating machinery, said data acquisition system comprising;

a plurality of separate sensor modules, each of said plurality of separate sensor modules being associated with one of a plurality of separate components of said rotating machinery, each sensor module comprising;

at least one sensor directly coupled to said separate respective component of said rotating machinery; and

at least one interface module coupled to said at least one sensor and configured to receive said sensor data from said at least one sensor;

detecting a parameter associated with a condition of a selected one of said plurality of separate components or a component indirectly coupled thereto using a sensor of an associated one of said plurality of separate sensor modules and providing sensor output data from said sensor to an associated interface module based at least in part on said parameter;

analyzing said sensor output data;

generating module output data based at least in part on said sensor output data, said module output data comprising a representation of said condition of said selected one of said plurality of separate components or said component indirectly coupled thereto;

providing said module output data to a server, and

estimating remaining useful life of said selected one of said plurality of components or said component indirectly coupled thereto based at least in part on a representation of a condition of said selected one of said plurality of components or said component indirectly coupled thereto.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein said analyzing is performed by said associated interface module.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein said analyzing comprises performing a transform to determine a frequency spectrum based on said sensor output data, the frequency spectrum associated with said condition of said selected one of said plurality of components or said component indirectly coupled thereto.

4. The method according to claim 3, further comprising determining statistics based, at least in part, on said frequency spectrum, wherein said statistics are associated with said condition of said selected one of said plurality of components or said component indirectly coupled thereto.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein said analyzing comprises determining a vector of average sensor output data for a time period corresponding to a revolution of said selected one of said plurality of components or said component indirectly coupled thereto.

6. The method according to claim 5, further comprising determining statistics, based, at least in part, on the vector of average sensor output data.

7. The method according to claim 1, further comprising determining a condition indicator, wherein said condition indicator corresponds to a probability distribution of said detected parameter for a sample of known good components of rotating machinery.

8. The method according to claim 7, further comprising determining a health indicator based, at least in part, on at least one condition indicator, wherein said health indicator represents a current condition of said selected one of said plurality of components or said component indirectly coupled thereto.

9. The method according to claim 8, further comprising scaling said health indicator so that a threshold indicating a component of said rotating machinery is no longer good corresponds to a common reference of health indicators of other monitored components of said rotating machinery.

10. A data acquisition system comprising:

a plurality of separate sensor modules, each of said plurality of separate sensor modules being associated with one of a plurality of separate components of rotating machinery, each sensor module comprising;

at least one sensor directly coupled to said separate respective component of said rotating machinery and configured to detect a parameter associated with a condition of said separate respective component or a component indirectly coupled thereto and to provide sensor data based at least in part on said detected parameter; and

at least one interface module coupled to said at least one sensor and configured to receive and analyze said sensor data from said at least one sensor and to generate module output data based at least in part on said sensor data, said module output data comprising a representation of said condition of said separate respective component or said component indirectly coupled thereto; and

a data bus configured to couple each of said plurality of separate sensor modules to a server and allow transmission of module output data from each of said plurality of separate sensor modules to said server, wherein said server is configured to provide an estimate of remaining useful life of a selected one of said separate respective components or a component indirectly coupled thereto of said rotating machinery to a user based at least in part on a representation of a condition of said selected one of said separate respective components or said component indirectly coupled thereto.

11. The data acquisition system according to claim 10, wherein said at least one sensor is selected from the group consisting of a tachometer configured to detect a rotational speed of a separate respective component or a component indirectly coupled thereto of the rotating machinery and an accelerometer configured to detect vibration of a separate respective component or a component indirectly coupled thereto.

12. The data acquisition system according to claim 10, wherein said selected one of said separate respective components or said component indirectly coupled thereto is a shaft, a bearing or a gear.

13. The data acquisition system according to claim 10, wherein said data bus is a daisy chain and each of said plurality of separate sensor modules is connected to at most two other sensor modules.

14. The data acquisition system according to claim 10, further comprising:

a local data concentrator coupled to each of said plurality of separate sensor modules and configured to provide media access control (MAC) for to at least one of said separate sensor modules, to transmit commands to at least one of said separate sensor modules, to receive module output data from at least one of said separate sensor modules and to provide received module output data to said server via said data bus,

wherein said data bus is configured to carry power from said local data concentrator to at least one of the separate sensor modules.

15. The data acquisition system according to claim 10, wherein at least one of said plurality of separate sensor modules comprises a controller configured to perform floating point calculations in hardware.

16. An system comprising:

rotating machinery; and

a data acquisition system mounted on said rotating machinery, said data acquisition system comprising;

a plurality of separate sensor modules, each of said plurality of separate sensor modules being associated with one of a plurality of separate respective components of said rotating machinery, each sensor module comprising;

at least one sensor directly coupled to said separate respective component of said rotating machinery and configured to detect a parameter associated with a condition of said separate respective component or a component indirectly coupled thereto and to provide sensor data based at least in part on said detected parameter; and

at least one interface module coupled to said at least one sensor and configured to receive and analyze said sensor data from said at least one sensor and to generate module output data based at least in part on said sensor data, said module output data comprising a representation of said condition of said separate respective component or said component indirectly coupled thereto; and

a data bus configured to couple each of said plurality of separate sensor modules to a server and allow transmission of module output data from each of said plurality of separate sensor modules to said server, wherein said server is configured to provide an estimate of remaining useful life of a selected one of said separate respective components or a component indirectly coupled thereto of said rotating machinery to a user based at least in part on a representation of a condition of said selected one of said separate respective components or said component indirectly coupled thereto.

17. The system according to claim 16, wherein said at least one sensor is selected from the group consisting of a tachometer configured to detect a rotational speed of a separate respective component or a component indirectly coupled thereto of the rotating machinery and an accelerometer configured to detect vibration of a separate respective component or a component indirectly coupled thereto.

18. The system according to claim 16, wherein said selected one of said separate respective components or said component indirectly coupled thereto is a shaft, a bearing or a gear.

19. The system according to claim 16, wherein said data bus is a daisy chain and each of said plurality of separate sensor modules is connected to at most two other sensor modules.

20. The system according to claim 16, wherein said rotating machinery is selected from the group consisting of a wind turbine, gas turbines and gearboxes associated with ground vehicles, ships and/or aircraft.