IMPLEMENTATION OF FAULT IDENTIFICATION IN A STEAM TURBINE

USING WAVELET DECOMPOSITION

K.Satyanarayana1,*, M.M.M.Sarcar2 and S.Purushothaman3

Associate Professor, VVIT, Nambur, Guntur, India-522508, satyam918@gmail.com

1
2
Professor, A. U. College of Engineering, Visakhapatnam, India-530003, mmmsarcar@gmail.com
3
Professor, PET Engineering College, India-627117,
dr.s.purushothaman@gmail.com

Abstract. In the paper fault identification of steam turbine shaft using wavelet is discussed. The
displacement values obtained are from the vibration signals acquired corresponding to the data
collected from the power plant. Vibration signals have been collected from six sensors mounted on
different bearings. The signals are sampled at 44100Hz. The signal is preconditioned and
decomposed to 5 levels to obtain much lower frequency high scale signals to know the condition of
the bearing. Statistical parameters like mean, standard deviation, norm, minimum and maximum for
all the approximations and all the details at all the 5 levels have been obtained. These statistical
values are used for fault identification. The accuracy of fault identification is based on the type of
the wavelet used.

Keywords: steam turbine, wavelet decomposition, fault identification.

INTRODUCTION

Condition Monitoring
Vibration based condition monitoring is the process employed to evaluate the working
conditions of a steam turbine shaft. This is achieved by monitoring the values acquired from
different sensors mounted on the shaft to measure the vibration. The values are compared with a
benchmark suggested by the machine manufacturers. If the measured values exceed the benchmark
values, suitable steps will be taken to overhaul the machine. [1]. Machine condition monitoring and
fault diagnosis using sensors is in great demand [2]. The operation parameters are used for
monitoring fault condition of a machine [3]. Based on the collected parameter values, forecasting
the turbine shaft conditions can be done [4]. Sensors are placed through structural integration into a
rolling bearing inside a machine [5]. The embedded approach is very much useful [6] in acquiring
accurate vibration signals with minimum external vibration. In order to extract information form the
signals, processing is done in the time domain. Statistical parameters of vibration signals such as
root mean square, peak values [7], kurtosis [8], and crest factor have been used. Spectral techniques
have been widely applied in power cepstrum analysis.

STEAM TURBINE SYSTEM

Steam turbine is a machine which rotates through impingement of steam on turbine blades.
The first steam turbine was developed by De Laval, Parsons and Curtis in 1880s. Steam turbines are
used in all coal fired power stations. The turbines are used to drive the generators or alternators
producing electricity. Energy of the steam is converted into rotational energy as it impinges over the
turbine. The turbine consists of blades in several stages. Stationary blades convert the potential
energy of the steam (temperature and pressure) into kinetic energy (velocity) and direct the flow
onto the rotating blades. Kinetic energy is converted into forces by the rotating blades. Pressure
drop results in the rotation of the turbine shaft. The turbine shaft is connected to a generator that
produces the electrical energy. The rotational speed is 3000 rpm for Indian (50 Hz) systems.
To avoid any catastrophic failures, signals generated from the sensors attached to the critical
locations of the systems have to be analyzed. Extracting fault features are the key steps in the fault
diagnosis of rotating machinery [9].
 The steam turbine is split into three separate stages: 1) High Pressure (HP), 2) Intermediate
Pressure (IP) and 3) Low Pressure (LP) stage. The pressure of the steam is described through high,
intermediate, and low. After the output of HP stage, steam is returned to the boiler. It is re-heated to
its original temperature. The reheated steam passes through the IP stage followed by LP stage of the
turbine. Several IP or LP stages can be incorporated into the one steam turbine resulting in different
configurations of the steam turbine. Shaft of the turbine can be single or it is made of many coupled
shafts. A typical power station steam turbine is shown in Figure 1.

Fig. 1 Steam turbine

VIBRATIONS: FAULT DIAGNOSIS AND PROGNOSIS

There are two types of faults that occur in a steam turbine generator set. The one is incipient
fault which is slowly changing the behavior, and related to wear and tear of components. The other
is abrupt fault which occurs suddenly and are typically linked to situations where components may
shatter. The sensor monitoring is used to determine numerous variable states. Abnormal situation is
a generic term used to describe any deviation from an acceptable range of process operation. Real
time control is used to control the machine in desired condition by control message. The analytical
or empirical model such as expert system is used to analyze the machine condition. Chen [10],
developed an adaptive redundant lifting multi-wavelet based on the Hermite splines interpolation,
taking the minimum envelope spectrum entropy as the optimization objective. Additionally, this
wavelet is improved by adding the normalization factors. Hilbert transform demodulation analysis is
used to extract the fault feature. This is applied to compound faults detection for the simulation
experiment, rolling element bearing test bench and traveling unit of electric locomotive.

MATERIALS AND METHODOLOGY:

VIBRATION DATA COLLECTION AND FEATURE EXTRACTION
Figure 2 describes a schematic view of measuring instrument systems used for measuring
various parameters for a steam turbine. At each location, two sensors are used, one for horizontal
and the other for vertical measurements. In the diagram, HP is the high pressure and LP is the low
pressure.
Vibration signals
Vibration signals collected from horizontal sensors at bearing locations 1 (Figure 3), is
shown for sample. The number of samples shown is 20000 (signal taken for 0.5 seconds).

Fig. 2 Schematic Diagram of Sensor location Fig. 3 Sensor-1, Horizontal

SAMPLE DISPLACEMENT VALUES (µm) ON A DAY

Displacement data (Figure 4) was collected from the power station control room. The data is
in µm. As per the maintenance department of the power station, the following are the limits of
displacement monitored by the maintenance personnel.

Displacement (μm) Condition of the turbine shaft

<=15 Good
>15 and <=40 Satisfactory
>40 Bad and not acceptable

Fig. 4 Displacement values in the steam turbine

Wavelet decomposition of vibration signal to 5 levels

The WT was developed as an alternative to the short time Fourier transform (STFT). Figure 5 (a to
j) present decomposition of a signal with 8000 samples. It presents the approximation and detail
coefficients from level-1 to level-5 obtained using Daubechies1 wavelet. The plots show the
coefficients of the signal decomposed. Images a & b, c & d, e & f, g & h and i & j forms level1to 5
respectively.

(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

(f) (g) (h) (i) (j)

Fig. 5 Decompositon of signal Samples
Feature extraction from the wavelet coefficients

Features are the representative information about a system. In this research work, features
obtained from the coefficients of the wavelet decompositions of the vibration signal are used as
inputs for the proposed ANN algorithms. The features are extracted by using the equation (1).
, where d = Samples in a frame and V1 = Mean value of
coefficients. (1)
, where V2=Standard Deviation of coefficients. (2)
V3 = Maximum (Approximation or Details) of coefficients. (3)
V4 = Minimum (Approximation or Details) of coefficients. (4)
2
V5 = Normal (Approximation or Details) of coefficients,
where V5 = Energy value of frequency. (5)
Figure 6 presents the mean value of approximations in each level 1 to 5. From the plot, it can
be noticed that, for one category of vibration signal collected from the steam turbine, the mean
value lies in the range of -0.005 till 0.002. The same range of values are found for all the
approximations.

Fig. 6 Plot of the mean values Fig. 7 Plot of the standard deviations

Figure 7 presents the standard deviations of approximations in each level 1 to 5. From the plot, it
can be noticed that, for one category of vibration signal collected from the steam turbine, the std lies
in the range of 0.15 to 0.6. The same range of values are found for all the approximations. Figure 8
presents the Norm of approximations in each level 1 to 5. From the plot, it can be noticed that, for
one category of vibration signal collected from the steam turbine, the norm lies in the range of 0.25-
20. The same range of values are found for all the
approximations.

Fig. 8 Plot of the Norm Fig. 9 Plot of the maximum values

Figure 9 presents the maximum values of approximations in each level 1 to 5. From the plot, it can
be noticed that, for one category of vibration signal collected from the steam turbine, the maximum
values lies in the range of 0.5 till 2.8. The same range of values is found for all the approximations.

Fig. 10 Plot of the min values

Figure 10 presents the minimum values of approximations in each level 1 to 5. From the
plot, it can be noticed that, for one category of vibration signal collected from the steam turbine, the
minimum values lies in the range of -0.5 till -2.8. The same range of values is found for all the
approximations.

CONCLUSION

The vibration signals are collected from sensors located at 6 bearing pads of steam turbine shaft.
These signals are preconditioned, sampled and decomposed to 5 levels using Daubechies1 wavelet.
Statistical features were calculated from the coefficients of the wavelet decomposition of the signals
for identifying and classifying the fault in steam turbine shaft. The classification accuracy of fault is
more than 91.57%.

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