Modeling and fault monitoring of industrial centrifugal equipment

旋转机器的振动会对其部件造成极大的应力和损坏，从而导致故障率增加。在以高速操作的大型离心机中，例如用于分离液体和固体的不同材料的碗式离心机，由于极大的g力，碗和转子的不平衡可能导致灾难性的状况。在全速运行期间早期检测不平衡对这些机器非常重要。 另一方面，即使在正常操作条件下，当旋转频率接近对应于系统振动模式的临界频率时，启动和关闭期间的振动水平也显著变化。停机条件未考虑滑行过程中预期的较大振动，可能导致潜在损坏或故障。这些碗式离心机已广泛用于加拿大的油砂行业，在石油开采的几个阶段进行关键的石油分离过程。它们的可靠性对生产和成本起着重要作用。为了降低成本，提高油砂产品的市场竞争力，提高设备的可靠性是油砂企业的首要任务。因此，本研究的一个重要目标是提高操作这些离心机的可靠性和效率。为此，本研究确定了几个短期目标：1）对离心机动态行为进行建模和表征; 2）设计和实现基于模型的离心机状态监测方案。通过实现这些目标，我们进一步的目标是开发有效的建模工具，旋转机器，特别是垂直旋转机器，如这些碗型高速离心机。

Vibrations of a rotating machine can cause extreme stress and damage to its components, leading to increased failure rate. In a large centrifuge operated at high speed, e.g. a bowl type centrifuge used to separate different materials of liquid and solid, imbalance of the bowl and rotor can result in disastrous conditions due to the extremely large g-force. Early detection of imbalance during the full speed operation is very crucial for these machines. On the other hand, even at the normal operating conditions, the vibration level during start-up and shut-down varies significantly as the rotational frequency approaches the critical frequencies corresponding to the vibration modes of the system. The shutdown condition not considering the larger vibrations to be expected during the coast-down process can lead to potential damages or failures. These bowl type centrifuges have been widely used in the oil sands industry in Canada to perform the crucial oil separation process in several phases of the oil extraction. Their reliability plays a major role impacting the production and cost. To lower the cost and make oil sands more competitive in the market, it is of top priority of the oils sands company to enhance the equipment reliability. Therefore, one important goal of this research is to improve the reliability and efficiency for operating these centrifuges. For this goal, several short-term objectives are identified for this research: 1) to perform modeling and characterization of the centrifuge dynamic behaviors; 2) to design and implement model based condition monitoring scheme for these centrifuges. By accomplishing these objectives, we further aim to develop effective modeling tools for rotating machines, especially for the vertical rotating machines like these bowl type high speed centrifuges.