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

7 D1-7 Few time samples = Low Resolution
 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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