European Journal of Scientific Research

ISSN 1450-216X Vol. 85 No 4 September, 2012, pp.591 - 599

© EuroJournals Publishing, Inc. 2012
http://www.europeanjournalofscientificresearch.com

Condition Monitoring of a Turbine using Echo

State Neural Network

Satyanarayana K.
Associate professor, Mechanical Engineering
VVIT, Nambur, Guntur Dist- 522508
E-mail: satyam918@gmail.com

Sarcar M. M. M.
Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering
College of Engineering, Andhra University, Visakhapatnam - 530 003
E-mail: mmmsarcar.mech@aucevizag.ac.in

Purushothaman S.
Prof and Dean- PG Studies
Udaya School of Engineering, India-629204
E-mail: drsppuru@gmail.com

Abstract

Steam Turbine used in power station is a costly system. It is used to drive

generators for producing electricity. Periodic monitoring and preventive maintenance is
mandatory to minimize heavy operational loss. The loss can be sudden breakage of small to
large sized mechanical rotating parts due to improper maintenance. There are many
methods to identify the preexisting faults of the rotating turbine that leads to vibrations.
Monitoring of vibration of rotating parts is very important as the vibration slowly escalates
to different mechanical parts leading to failure of components. Many statistical methods,
artificial neural network algorithms, evolutionary algorithms have been proposed by earlier
researchers especially for bearing fault identification, Gas Turbine condition monitoring.
However, there are very limited publications that discuss the implementation of ANN in
condition monitoring of Steam Turbine. This paper implements Echo State Neural Network
(ESNN) which experimentally recognizes turbine bearings faults. Wavelet coefficients are
obtained from the vibration signal and used as feature. The statistical parameters of the
wavelet coefficients are used to train the ESNN. The turbine working condition has been
categorized as good, satisfactory and bad. ESNN with 5 X 7 X 1 topology has been used to
classify the conditions of turbine.

Keywords: Vibration, Turbine data, Echo State Neural Network

1. Introduction
Condition monitoring and diagnostics of rotating machinery is mostly based on vibration data (Chow,
et al., 1991; Alguindigue, et al., 1993; Paya, et al., 1997; McCormick, et al., 1997,1998;). .Automated
Condition Monitoring of a Turbine using Echo State Neural Network 592

detection and diagnosis of machine conditions by artificial neural networks (McCormick, et al., 1997;
Dellomo, 1999; Nandi, 2000; Samanta and Al-Balushi, 2001, 2003).
Turbine supervision is an essential part of the day-to-day running of any power plant. There are
many potential faults such as cracked rotors and damaged shafts, which result from vibration and
expansion. When this expansion and vibration is apparent in its early stages the problem can usually be
resolved without any disruption when the turbine has to be shut down. By appropriate trending of the
various measurement points and the identification of excessive vibration or movement, scheduled
equipment stoppages or outages can often be utilized to investigate and resolve the failure mechanism.
Typical vibration measurement include: 1.Absolute vibration of bearing pedestals, 2.Shaft
vibration relative to bearing, 3.Structural & foundation vibration monitoring.
Typical location measurement include: 1.Shaft eccentricity, 2.Differential expansion or shaft
movement, 3.Valve position on steam inlet, 4.Casing expansion, both inner and outer, 5.Speed,
including over speed and zero speed and 6.Temperature
Each of the measurement techniques are used to monitor the turbine during its operating cycle,
some measurements may be configured to provide warning alarms as well as automated shutdown,
although these systems tend to operate on a voted principle to ensure maximum system integrity.

2. Problem Definition
The existing problem in diagnosing the vibration of a heavy rotary system is the absence of a standard
pattern of vibration signal. Hence, new methodologies are required to identify possible forms of
different vibration patterns. So, we prefer to use ANN, which we believe, can give added strength in
diagnosing the vibration information to arrive at a concrete decision.

3. Methodology
3.1. Wavelet Decomposition
The wavelet transform (WT) was developed as an alternative to the short time Fourier transform
(STFT). A wavelet is a waveform with limited duration that has an average value of zero. While
comparing wavelets with sine waves, sinusoids do not have limited duration. They extend from minus
to plus infinity where sinusoids are smooth and predictable. Wavelet analysis is the breaking up of a
signal (James, et al., 1997; Gary, et al., 1999; Lada, et al., 2002; Kahaei, et al., 2006; Chebil, et al.,
2009) into shifted and scaled versions of the original (or mother) wavelet. The features are obtained
from the Approximation and Details of the 5th level of db1, by using the following equations:
V1=1/d ∑ (Approximation details) (1)
Where d = Samples in a frame and
V1 = Mean value of approximation
V2=1/d ∑ (Approximation or details –V1)) (2)
Where V2=Standard Deviation of approximation
V3=maximum (Approximation or details) (3)
V4=minimum (Approximation or details) (4)
V5=norm (Approximation or Details)2 (5)
Where V5 = Energy value of frequency

3.2. Echo State Neural Network

An Artificial Neural Network (ANN) is an abstract stimulation of a real nervous system that contains a
collection of neuron units, communicating with each other via axon connections. Artificial neural
networks are computing elements which are based on the structure and function of the biological
neurons. These networks have nodes or neurons which are described by difference or differential
equations.
593 Satyanarayana K., Sarcar M. M. M. and Purushothaman S.

Dynamic computational models require the ability to store and access the time history of their
inputs and outputs. The most common dynamic neural architecture is the Time-Delay Neural Network
(TDNN) that couples delay lines with a nonlinear static architecture where all the parameters (weights)
are adapted with the back propagation algorithm. Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) implement a
different type of embedding that is largely unexplored. RNNs are perhaps the most biologically
plausible of the Artificial Neural Network (ANN) models. One of the main practical problems with
RNNs is the difficulty to adapt the system weights. Various algorithms, such as back propagation
through time and real-time recurrent learning, have been proposed to train RNNs; however, these
algorithms suffer from computational complexity, resulting in slow training, complex performance
surfaces, the possibility of instability, and the decay of gradients through the topology and time. The
problem of decaying gradients has been addressed with special processing elements (PEs).
The ESNN, Figure 1, with a concept new topology has been found by ESNN possesses a highly
interconnected and recurrent topology of nonlinear PEs that constitutes a reservoir of rich dynamics
and contains information about the history of input and output patterns. The outputs of this internal PEs
(echo states) are fed to an adaptive network that produces the network output. The interesting property
of ESNN is that only the memory less readout is trained, whereas the recurrent topology has fixed
connection weights. This reduces the complexity of RNN training to simple linear regression while
preserving a recurrent topology, but obviously places important constraints in the overall architecture
that have not yet been fully studied.
The echo state condition is defined in terms of the spectral radius (the largest among the
absolute values of the Eigen values of a matrix, denoted by (|| || ) of the reservoir’s weight matrix (|| W
|| < 1). This condition states that the dynamics of the ESNN is uniquely controlled by the input, and the
effect of the initial states vanishes. The current design of ESNN parameters relies on the selection of
spectral radius. There are many possible weight matrices with the same spectral radius, and
unfortunately they do not perform at the same level of mean square error (MSE) for functional
approximation.

Figure 1: An Echo State Network (ESNN)

The recurrent network is a reservoir of highly interconnected dynamical components, states of

which are called echo states. The memory less linear readout is trained to produce the output. Consider
the recurrent discrete-time neural network given in Figure 1 with M input units, N internal PEs, and L
output units. The value of the input unit at time n is as follows:
u(n) = [u1(n), u2(n), . . . , uM(n)]T , (6)
The internal units are x(n) = [x1(n), x2(n), . . . , xN(n)]T , and (7)
Condition Monitoring of a Turbine using Echo State Neural Network 594

Output units are y(n) = [y1(n), y2(n), . . . , yL (n)]T. (8)

The connection weights are given
An (N x M) weight matrix W back  Wijback for connections between the input and the internal
PEs,
An N × N matrix W in  Wijin for connections between the internal PEs
An L × N matrix W out  Wijout for connections from PEs to the output units and
An N × L matrix W back  Wijback for the connections that project back from the output to the
internal PEs.
The activation of the internal PEs (echo state) is updated according to
x(n + 1) = f(Win u(n + 1) + Wx(n) +Wbacky(n)), (9)
where f = ( f1, f2, . . . , fN) are the internal PEs’ activation functions.
e x  e x
Here, all fi’s are hyperbolic tangent functions x  x . The output from the readout network is
e e
computed according to
y(n + 1) = fout(Woutx(n + 1)), . (10)
where
f out  ( f1out , f2out ,...., f Lout ) are the output unit’s nonlinear functions. (Atiya et al 2000; Jaeger et
al 2004, 2007, 2009; Purushothaman et al, 2008).
The algorithm for training the ESNN is as follows:
Step 1: Read a Pattern (I) (vibration pattern) and its Target (T) value.
Step 2: Decide the number of reservoirs.
Step 3: Decide the number of sides in the input layer = length of pattern.
Step 4: Decide the number of sides in the output layer = number of target values.
Step 5: Initialize random weights between input and hidden layer (Ih) hidden and output .
Step 6: Calculate F=Ih*I.
Step 7: Calculate TH = Ho * T.
Step 8: Calculate TT = R*S.
Step 9: Calculate S = tan h(F+TT+TH).
Step 10: Calculate a = Pseudo inverse (S).
Step 11: Calculate Wout = a * T and store Wout for testing.
The algorithm for testing the ESNN is as follows:
Step 1: Read a Pattern (I) (vibration pattern).
Step 2: Calculate F=Ih*I.
Step 3: TH = Ho * T.
Step 4: TT = R*S.
Step 5: S = tan h(F+TT+TH).
Step 6: a = Pseudo inverse (S).
Step 7: Estimated = a * Wout
Step 8: Identify the vibration category.
Figure 2 shows the error between estimated and target values. The curve oscillates and
minimum value is obtained at 22 nodes. In Figure 3, the change of weight values and their impact in
estimation of ESNN is presented when the weight normalization is done only between output layer and
hidden layer (reservoirs). The error increases and decreases. The x-axis represents the change in the
weight values in output and hidden layer.
595 Satyanarayana K., Sarcar M. M. M. and Purushothaman S.
Figure 2: Error between estimated and actual output

0.9

0.8

estimated and actual outputs

0.7

0.6
Error between
0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0
4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22
Reservoir number

Figure 3: Error between estimated and actual output

0.1
Reservoir =22

0.08
Error between estimated
and actual outputs

0.06

0.04

0.02

0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
weight normalization between reservoir and outputs

Figure 4: Error between estimated and actual output

3
Reservoir =22

2.5
Error between estimated
and actual outputs

1.5

0.5

0
0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
weight normalization between reservoir and Inputs
Condition Monitoring of a Turbine using Echo State Neural Network 596

In Figure 4, the change of weight values and their impact in estimation of ESNN is presented
when the weight normalization is done between input layer and hidden layer (reservoirs) only. The
error increases and decreases continuously. The x- axis represents the change in the weight values in
input and hidden layer.

Figure 5: Error between estimated and actual output

0.3

0.25
Error between estimated
and actual outputs

0.2

0.15

0.1

0.05

0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2
weight normalization in reservoir

In Figure 5, the change of weight values and their impact in estimation of ESNN is presented
when the weight normalization is done only in reservoirs. The error increases and decreases
continuously. The x-axis represents the change in the weight values in hidden layer.

4. Experimental Setup and Result Discussion

4.1. Schematic Diagram of the Vibration Acquiring System

Figure6: Vibration acquiring system Courtesy (ProvibTech)

The schematic diagram is self explanatory and a similar system is installed in the power plant at
Dr NTTPS (VTPS) Vijayawada, Andhra pradesh, India. Figure 7 shows the amount of displacement
597 Satyanarayana K., Sarcar M. M. M. and Purushothaman S.

obtained from the vibration display system in the power plant. Figure 8 presents the outputs of ESNN
against the target output.

Figure 7: Displacement values in the turbine

Figure 8: Classification performance of ESNN

5. Conclusion
This paper shows the extraction of features from the vibration signal followed by training and testing
using the Echo State Neural Network. The following conclusions are obtained.
1. The size of the network can be as small as possible to learn the features of the non linear
signal.
2. The training of the ESNN requires reservoirs in the range of 18-23.
Condition Monitoring of a Turbine using Echo State Neural Network 598

The paper presents a way for extracting features from vibration signals and processing using an
ESNN. This network can learn large number of vibration patterns and it is possible to classify vibration
with maximum accuracy.

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