Fault Diagnosis of Centrifugal Pumps Using Motor Electrical Signals

Centrifugal pumps are some of the most widely used pumps in the industry (Bachus & Custodio, 2003) and many of them are driven by induction motors. Failure to either the induction motor or the centrifugal pump would result in an unscheduled shutdown leading to loss of production and subsequently loss of revenue. A lot of effort has been invested in detecting and diagnosing incipient faults in induction motors and centrifugal pumps through the analysis of vibration data, obtained using accelerometers installed in various locations on the motor-pump system. Fault detection schemes based on the analysis of process data, such as pressures, flow rates and temperatures have also been developed. In some cases, speed is used as an indicator for the degradation of the pump performance. All of the above mentioned schemes require sensors to be installed on the system that leads to an increase in overall system cost. Additional sensors need cabling, which also contributes towards increasing the system cost. These sensors have lower reliability, and hence fail more often than the system being monitored, thereby reducing the overall robustness of the system. In some cases it may be difficult to access the pump to install sensors. One such example is the case of submersible pumps wherein it is difficult to install or maintain sensors once the pump is underwater. To avoid the above-mentioned problems, the use of mechanical and/or process sensors has to be avoided to the extent possible.

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