Department of Systems and Control

Jožef Stefan Institute

An intelligent system for condition monitoring of rotating machinery

Principal investigator:

Prof. Dr. Jožef Vižintin, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Ljubljana
Responsible investigator at the department: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Đani Juričić

Duration:

September 1, 2005 - August 31, 2008

Funding:

ARRS - Slovenian Research Agency (L2-7298), co-sponsored by ACRONI d.d., Jesenice

Abstract

In the manufacturing and process industries there is a growing need to replace periodical checks of the physical condition of rotating machinery with reliable on-line condition monitoring systems able to reveal tentative causes for malfunction as early as in their incipient stage. As worsening of machine condition typically progresses gradually, the maintenance actions can be planed well before a fault evolves into a failure provoking system break-down.
The idea of the project is to build a laboratory test bed fully equipped with rich instrumentation and monitored by powerful on-line algorithms. The test bed consists of a motor-generator pair connected through a mechanical clutch which emulates drives, so much widespread in various branches of industries. This case study will serve

• to develop new monitoring strategies on the one hand and
• to develop new monitoring strategies on the one hand and to develop useful SW modules that might be implemented in industry.

General idea of the project can be seen from Figure.
One of the issues in system diagnosis is how to fully exploit the diversity of information sources i.e. standard on-line measurement instrumentation complemented with off-line special-purpose laboratory checks of wear particles and lubricant samples.