Operating machine and maintenance and inspection information generating apparatus

• US 9,292,011 B2
• Filed: 04/24/2012
• Issued: 03/22/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 04/28/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hitachi Construction Machinery Company Limited (Hitachi, Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Hitachi Construction Machinery Company Limited (Hitachi, Ltd.)
• Inventors: Suzuki, Hideaki, Nakamura, Kozo, Yuda, Shinya, Uchiyama, Hiroki, Saeki, Takashi, Minemura, Kesaaki, Fujiwara, Jyunsuke
• Primary Examiner(s): Lo, Kenneth M
• Assistant Examiner(s): Boateng, Derrick
• Application Number:
  US14/113,633
• Publication Number:
  US 20140052299A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,428 Days
• Field of Search: 700/275
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: E02F 9/267 Diagnosing or detecting failure of vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 15/02 electric
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/20 Administration of product repair or maintenance

Abstract

A hydraulic shovel includes: a storage unit which stores an operation history of a target component of the shovel targeted for life span estimation, a discrimination threshold value used for classifying usage of the target component into a plurality of usage modes based on the operation history, and a usage mode-specific estimated life span indicative of an estimated life span of the target component in each of the usage modes; and an arithmetic and control unit which calculates an operating time of the target component in each of the usage modes in accordance with the operation history and the discrimination threshold value, and estimates the life span of the target component based on the operating time calculated for each of the usage modes and on the usage mode-specific estimated life span.

Claims

1. An operating machine constituted by a plurality of components, said operating machine comprising:

a storage unit which stores an operation history of a target component included in said plurality of components and targeted for life span estimation, a discrimination threshold value used for classifying usage of said target component into a plurality of usage modes based on said operation history, and a usage mode-specific estimated life span indicative of an estimated life span of said target component in each of said usage modes; and

an arithmetic and control unit which performs a process of calculating an operating time of said target component in each of said usage modes by classifying said operation history of said target component in accordance with said discrimination threshold value, and a process of estimating the life span of said target component based on the operating time of said target component calculated for each of said usage modes in the aforementioned process and on said usage mode-specific estimated life span;

wherein said usage mode-specific estimated life span is calculated on the basis of the operating times of a plurality of replaced components of the same type as the type of said target component in each of said usage modes.

3. The operating machine according to claim 1, wherein, in performing the process of estimating the life span of said target component, said arithmetic and control unit estimates the life span of said target component based on the ratio of the operating time of said target component in each of said usage modes with respect to said usage mode-specific estimated life span.

4. The operating machine according to claim 1, further comprising

a display device which displays the life span of said target component estimated by said arithmetic and control unit.

5. The operating machine according to claim 4, further comprising wherein said display device displays the operating time of said target component calculated for each of said usage modes by said arithmetic and control unit, along with the life span of said target component.

6. The operating machine according to claim 4, wherein, as the process of estimating said life span, said arithmetic and control unit performs a process of calculating a consumed life span and a remaining life span of said target component, and

said display device displays the consumed life span and remaining life span calculated by said arithmetic and control unit.

2. An operating machine constituted by a plurality of components, said operating machine comprising:

a sensor which detects an operation history of a target component included in said plurality of components and targeted for life span estimation;

a storage unit which stores a discrimination threshold value used for classifying usage of said target component into a plurality of usage modes based on the magnitude of values detected by said sensor, and a usage mode-specific estimated life span indicative of the life span of said target component estimated for each of said usage modes; and

an arithmetic and control unit which performs a process of calculating an operating time of said target component in each of said usage modes by classifying the detected values from said sensor in accordance with said discrimination threshold value, and a process of estimating the life span of said target component based on the operating time of said target component calculated for each of said usage modes in the aforementioned process and on said usage mode-specific estimated life span

wherein said usage mode-specific estimated life span is calculated on the basis of the operating times of a plurality of replaced components of the same type as the type of said target component in each of said usage modes.

8. The operating machine according to claim 2, wherein, in performing the process of estimating the life span of said target component, said arithmetic and control unit estimates the life span of said target component based on the ratio of the operating time of said target component in each of said usage modes with respect to said usage mode-specific estimated life span.

9. The operating machine according to claim 2, further comprising a display device which displays the life span of said target component estimated by said arithmetic and control unit.

7. A maintenance and inspection information generating apparatus for use with an operating machine constituted by a plurality of components, said maintenance and inspection information generating apparatus comprising:

a storage unit which stores an operation history of a target component included in said plurality of components and targeted for life span estimation, a discrimination threshold value used for classifying usage of said target component into a plurality of usage modes based on said operation history, and a usage mode-specific estimated life span indicative of an estimated life span of said target component in each of said usage modes, and operation histories of a plurality of replaced components of the same type as the type of said target component; and

an arithmetic and control unit which performs a process of calculating an operating time of said target component in each of said usage modes by classifying the operation history of said target component in accordance with said discrimination threshold value, a process of calculating said usage mode-specific estimated life span based on the operation histories of said replaced components in each of said usage modes in accordance with said discrimination threshold value, and a process of estimating the life span of said target component based on said usage mode-specific estimated life span calculated in the aforementioned process and on the operating time of said target component in each of said usage modes.