New vibration signal processing technique
for the monitoring and analysis of variable
speed limited duration events – application
on mechanical shovels and draglines
Adri Ludick & Meshal Ruplal
Anglo American
Anglo Field Services
South Africa
The Anglo American Conference on Condition Monitoring and Non-destructive Testing
18 & 19 November 2008
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Issues
• Short time window for
data capture.
• Operation in two
directions.
• Machine speed varies in
the time window.
• Traditional FFT cannot
cope with speed
variations.
• Repeatability of
vibration data.
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Signal processing
• Maximum frequency captured
– Fmax = Sample rate/2.56
Sample rate
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Signal processing
• Lowest frequency captured
– Fmin = 1/Time
Time
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Fast Fourier Transform
• FFT extracts frequencies from the time data
• Spectral resolution depend on the number of
time data samples
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Variable speed applications
• Problem 1
– The frequencies of interest vary in time
window
– FFT faithfully calculates all the frequencies
resulting in smearing of data in spectrum
Amplitude
Frequency
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Variable speed applications
• Problem 2
– Spectral resolution
– High resolution required to resolve low
frequencies
– High resolution require many time samples
– Many time samples require more time
Many time samples = High Resolution
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Order Tracking
• Solution ?
– Track the machine speed as it varies
– Change the time sample rate as speed changes
• (Fmax)
– Normalise the spectral frequencies to 1 x Rpm.
– Display spectrum in orders of 1 x RPM
Amplitude
1x 2x 3x 4x 5x 6x 7x 8x 9x 10x 11x
Orders
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Order tracking
• Limitations
– Works well if speed changes slowly.
– Difficult to fit data collection into available
time window.
– Some success at Sishen mine in the past
• Control PLC switched into slow mode during data
capture. Impacted on production.
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Cadetech Siamflex system
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Cadetech Siamflex system
• National Instruments Compact Rio instrumentation
• High resolution BEI shaft encoder
• User interface programmed in Labview.
• Wireless LAN communication to server computer
• Remote desktop access to server for data analysis
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Cadetech Siamflex system
• Accurately track and record angular speed.
– 5 000 pulses per revolution, 0,072 degrees resolution.
• Digitise sensor time wave.
– Very high sample rate – 40 kHz, 16 channels
simultaneous.
• Resample digital timewave.
– Vary the sample rate based on the instantaneous
angular speed – “order track”
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Cadetech Siamflex system
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Cadetech Siamflex system
• Data capture trigger
– Predefined time interval.
• User defined, typical 12 hrs
– Alarm level trigger.
• User defined based on vibration amplitude.
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Cadetech Siamflex system
• Validation
– Determine direction.
• CW or CCW?
– Evaluate speed against predefined limit.
• Is the speed above user defined threshold?
– Evaluate captured time data block.
• Is there enough data to perform FFT at required
Fmax and resolution?
• Validation passed
– Process and save
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Cadetech Siamflex system
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Cadetech Siamflex system
• Result
– Clear, well defined frequencies in the spectrum
even with high rates of speed change.
– High resolution to resolve low frequency defects
– Data captured under normal working conditions
– Separate analysis of forward and reverse motions
– Only valid data stored to database.
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