Developing an Intelligent Fault Diagnosis of MF285 Tractor Gearbox Using Genetic Algorithm and Vibration Signals

This article investigates a fault detection system of MF285 Tractor gearbox empirically. After designing and constructing the laboratory set up, the vibration signals obtained using a Piezoelectric accelerometer which has been installed on the Bearing housings are related to rotary gear number 1 in two directions perpendicular to the shaft and in line with the shaft. The vector data were conducted in three different speeds of shaft 1500, 1000 and 2000 rpm and 130 repetitions were performed for each data vector state to increase the precision of neural network by using more data. Data captured were transformed to frequency domain for analyzing and input to the neural network by Fourier transform. To do neural network analysis, significant features were selected using a genetic algorithm and compatible neural network was designed with data captured. According to the results of the best output mode for each position of the sensor network in 1000, 1500 and 2000 rpm, totally for the six output models, all function parameters for MATLAB Software quality content calculated to evaluate network performance. These experiments showed that the overall mean correlation coefficient of the network to adapt to the mechanism of defect detection and classification system is equal to 99.9%.

Reducing Operation Emissions and Improving Work Efficiency Using a Pure Electric Wheel Drive Tractor

In response to the problems of excessive greenhouse-gas and particulate emissions and the low traction efficiency of conventional diesel tractors in the field,a purely electric wheel-side drive tractor was studied,including an electric motor drive system,a battery ballast system,and an electro–hydraulic suspension system.This paper develops a dynamics model of an electric tractor-ploughing unit under complex soil conditions,leading to the proposal of an active control method for drive wheel torque and a joint control method for the traction force of the suspension system and the front-and rear-axle loads of a tractor.Finally,the tractor is prototyped and assembled,and ploughing tests are carried out.The ploughing results show that the active torque-distribution control method proposed in this study reduces the tractor slip by 14.83%and increases the traction efficiency by 10.28%compared with the average torquedistribution mode.Compared with the conventional traction control mode,the joint control method for traction and ballast proposed in this paper results in a 3.7%increase in traction efficiency,a 15.05%decrease in slip,and a 4.9%reduction in total drive motor energy consumption.This study will help to improve the operation quality and traction efficiency of electric tractors in complex soil conditions.

Design a Special Fixture for Tractor Lever

Aiming at the problems of long time and poor machining precision in processing the tractor lever workpiece,a special fixture suitable for the tractor lever workpiece is designed by analyzing the processing technology of the lever workpiece,and the workpiece is accurately positioned and tightened under the action of the special fixture.Efficient machining of the workpiece can be achieved by using a drill template.The fixture not only has the advantages of high production efficiency,low cost and high life,but also effectively improves the processing technology of the workpiece,and has certain reference value for the subsequent fixture improvement design.

Torque effect on vibration behavior of high-speed train gearbox under internal and external excitations

The high-speed train transmission system,experiencing both the internal excitation originating from gear meshing and the external excitation originating from the wheel-rail interaction,exhibits complex dynamic behavior in the actual service environment.This paper focuses on the gearbox in the high-speed train to carry out the bench test,in which various operat-ing conditions(torques and rotation speeds)were set up and the excitation condition covering both internal and external was created.Acceleration responses on multiple positions of the gearbox were acquired in the test and the vibration behavior of the gearbox was studied.Meanwhile,a stochastic excitation modal test was also carried out on the test bench under different torques,and the modal parameter of the gearbox was identified.Finally,the sweep frequency response of the gearbox under gear meshing excitation was analyzed through dynamic modeling.The results showed that the torque has an attenuating effect on the amplitude of gear meshing frequency on the gearbox,and the effect of external excitation on the gearbox vibration cannot be ignored,especially under the rated operating condition.It was also found that the torque affects the modal param-eter of the gearbox significantly.The torque has a great effect on both the gear meshing stiffness and the bearing stiffness in the transmission system,which is the inherent reason for the changed modal characteristics observed in the modal test and affects the vibration behavior of the gearbox consequently.

On Dual-Mode Driving Control Method for a Novel Unmanned Tractor With High Safety and Reliability

Due to the non-standardization and complexity of the farmland environment,it is always a huge challenge for tractors to achieve fully autonomy(work at Self-driving mode)all the time in agricultural industry.Whereas,when tractors work in the Tele-driving(or Remote driving)mode,the operators are prone to fatigue because they need to concentrate for long periods of time.In response to these,a dual-mode control strategy was proposed to integrate the advantages of both approaches,i.e.,by combing Self-driving at most of the time with Tele-driving under special(complex and hazardous)conditions through switching control method.First,the state switcher was proposed,which is used for smooth switching the driving modes according to different working states of a tractor.Then,the state switching control law and the corresponding subsystem tracking controllers were designed.Finally,the effectiveness and superiority of the dualmode control method were evaluated via actual experimental testing of a tractor whose results show that the proposed control method can switch smoothly,stably,and efficiently between the two driving modes automatically.The average control accuracy has been improved by 20%and 15%respectively,compared to the conventional Tele-driving control and Self-driving control with low-precision navigation.In conclusion,the proposed dualmode control method can not only satisfy the operation in the complex and changeable farmland environment,but also free drivers from high-intensity and fatiguing work.This provides a perfect application solution and theoretical support for the intelligentization of unmanned farm agricultural machinery with high safety and reliability.

Study Two-Dimensional and Three-Dimensional of the Stress Concentration of the Traction Arm of the NEW HOLLAND TT75 Tractor in Service in CHAD

The New Holland TT75 tractors currently in service in Chad use a tractor arm with three holes, the middle one of which has recurrent failures due to traction. The purpose of this work is to use a finite element model to provide an improvement by modifying the geometric parameters to avoid premature failure of the tractor arms of the New Holland TT75. The ultimate force formula of Eurocode 3 was used to determine the maximum pressure to be applied and. A comparative traction study between the current arm and the proposed arm was performed, taking into account the variation in hole size, arm width and applied pressure for the determination of the stress concentration factor Kt. With the determination of Kt and for the arm width (w) less than or equal to 85 mm;the results showed that the proposed arm geometry is better.

Multi-objective Optimization of a Two-Stage Helical Gearbox to Improve Efficiency and Reduce Height

The goal of this research is to look at multi-target optimization of a two-stage helical gearbox in order to determine the best key design elements for reducing gearbox height and enhancing gearbox efficiency.To do this,the method known as Taguchi and GRA(Grey Relation Analysis)were used in two stages to address the problem.The single-objective optimization problem was addressed first to close the gap between variable levels,and then the multi-objective optimization problem was solved to determine the best primary design variables.The first and second stage CWFWs(Coefficients of Wheel Face Width),ACS(Permissible Contact Stresses),and first stage gear ratio were also calculated.The study’s findings were utilized to identify the best values for five critical design aspects of a two-stage helical gearbox.

Characterization,identification and life prediction of acoustic emission signals of tensile damage for HSR gearbox housing material

Purpose-This study aims to ensure the operation safety of high speed trains,it is necessary to carry out nondestructive monitoring of the tensile damage of the gearbox housing material in rail time,yet the traditional tests of mechanical property can hardly meet this requirement.Design/methodology/approach-In this study the acoustic emission(AE)technology is applied in the tensile tests of the gearbox housing material of an high-speed rail(HSR)train,during which the acoustic signatures are acquired for parameter analysis.Afterward,the support vector machine(SVM)classifier is introduced to identify and classify the characteristic parameters extracted,on which basis the SVM is improved and the weighted support vector machine(WSVM)method is applied to effectively reduce the misidentification of the SVM classifier.Through the study of the law of relations between the characteristic values and the tensile life,a degradation model of the gearbox housing material amid tensile is built.Findings-The results show that the growth rate of the logarithmic hit count of AE signals and that of logarithmic amplitude can well characterize the stage of the material tensile process,and the WSVM method can improve the classification accuracy of the imbalanced data to above 94%.The degradation model built can identify the damage occurred to the HSR gearbox housing material amid the tensile process and predict the service life remains.Originality/value-The results of this study provide new concepts for the life prediction of tensile samples,and more further tests should be conducted to verify the conclusion of this research.

Wind Turbine Planetary Gearbox Fault Diagnosis via Proportion-Extracting Synchrosqueezing Chirplet Transform

Wind turbine planetary gearboxes usually work under time-varying conditions,leading to nonstationary vibration signals.These signals often consist of multiple time-varying components with close instantaneous frequencies.Therefore,high-quality time-frequency analysis(TFA)is needed to extract the time-frequency feature from such nonstationary signals for fault diagnosis.However,it is difficult to obtain high-quality timefrequency representations(TFRs)through conventional TFA methods due to low resolution and time-frequency blurs.To address this issue,we propose a new TFA method termed the proportion-extracting synchrosqueezing chirplet transform(PESCT).Firstly,the proportion-extracting chirplet transform is employed to generate highresolution underlying TFRs.Then,the energy concentration of the underlying TFRs is enhanced via the synchrosqueezing transform.Finally,wind turbine planetary gearbox fault can be diagnosed by analysis of the dominant time-varying components revealed by the concentrated TFRs with high resolution.The proposed PESCT is suitable for achieving high-quality TFRs for complicated nonstationary signals.Numerical and experimental analyses validate the effectiveness of the PESCT in characterizing the nonstationary signals from wind turbine planetary gearboxes.

Measured load spectra of the bearing in high-speed train gearbox under different gear meshing conditions

The load spectrum is a crucial factor for assess-ing the fatigue reliability of in-service rolling element bear-ings in transmission systems.For a bearing in a high-speed train gearbox,a measurement technique based on strain detection of bearing outer ring was used to instrument the bearing and determine the time histories of the distributed load in the bearing under different gear meshing conditions.Accordingly,the load spectrum of the total radial load car-ried by the bearing was compiled.The mean value and class interval of the obtained load spectrum were found to vary non-monotonously with the speed and torque of gear mesh-ing,which was considered to be caused by the vibration of the shaft and the bearing cage.As the realistic service load input of bearing life assessment,the measured load spectrum under different gear meshing conditions can be used to pre-dict gearbox bearing life realistically based on the damage-equivalent principle and actual operating conditions.

An Improved Coupled Dynamic Modelling for Exploring Gearbox Vibrations Considering Local Defects

Gearbox is a key part in machinery,in which gear,shaft and bearing operate together to transmit motion and power.The wide usage and high failure rate of gearbox make it attract much attention on its health monitoring and fault diagnosis.Dynamic modelling can study the mechanism under different faults and provide theoretical foundation for fault detection.However,current commonly used gear dynamic model usually neglects the influence of bearing and shaft,resulting in incomplete understanding of gearbox fault diagnosis especially under the effect of local defects on gear and shaft.To address this problem,an improved gear-shaft-bearing-housing dynamic model is proposed to reveal the vibration mechanism and responses considering shaft whirling and gear local defects.Firstly,an eighteen degree-of-freedom gearbox dynamic model is proposed,taking into account the interaction among gear,bearing and shaft.Secondly,the dynamic model is iteratively solved.Then,vibration responses are expounded and analysed considering gear spalling and shaft crack.Numerical results show that the gear mesh frequency and its harmonics have higher amplitude through the spectrum.Vibration RMS and the shaft rotating frequency increase with the spalling size and shaft crack angle in general.An experiment is designed to verify the rationality of the proposed gearbox model.Lastly,comprehensive analysis under different spalling size and shaft crack angle are analysed.Results show that when spalling size and crack angle are larger,RMS and the amplitude of shaft rotating frequency will not increase linearly.The dynamic model can accurately simulate the vibration of gear transmission system,which is helpful for gearbox fault diagnosis.

Numerical Visualization of Grease Flow in a Gearbox

Lubricating greases are widely used in e.g.open gear drives and gearboxes with difficult sealing conditions.The efficiency and heat balance of grease-lubricated gearboxes depend strongly on the lubrication mechanisms channeling and circulating,for which the grease flow is causal.The computational fluid dynamics opens up the possibility to visualize and understand the grease flow in gearboxes in more detail.In this study,a single-stage gearbox lubricated with an NLGI 1-2 grease was modeled by the finite-volume method to numerically investigate the fluid flow.Results show that the rotating gears influence the grease sump only locally around the gears.For a low grease fill volume,the rotation of the gears is widely separated from the grease sump.For a high grease fill volume,a pronounced geargrease interaction results in a circulating grease flow around the gears.The simulated grease distributions show good accordance with high-speed camera recordings.

Intelligent Fault Diagnosis for Planetary Gearbox Using Transferable Deep Q Network Under Variable Conditions with Small Training Data

Effective fault diagnosis of planetary gearboxes is critical for ensuring the safety and dependability of mechanical drive systems.Nevertheless,variable conditions and inadequate fault data bring huge challenges to its practical fault diagnosis.Taking this into account,this study presents a new intelligent fault diagnosis(IFD)approach for planetary gearbox using a transferable deep Q network(TDQN)that merges deep reinforcement learning(DRL)and transfer learning(TL).First,a DRL environment simulation is designed by a predefined classification Markov decision process.Then,leveraging varied-size convolutions and residual learning,a multiscale residual convolutional neural network agent for TDQN is created to automatically learn meaningful features directly from vibration signals while avoiding model degradation.Next,a large source dataset is obtained from complex conditions,and this agent learns an IFD policy via autonomous interaction with the data environment.Finally,a parameter-based TL strategy is adopted to retrain the model on target datasets with variable conditions and small training data,which is conducted by fine-tuning the model parameters gained from the source task to accomplish target tasks.The results show that this TDQN outperforms not only state-of-the-art methods in a source task with an accuracy of 98.53%but also in two target tasks with 99.63%and 98.37%,respectively.

Rul-tractor装置辅助经剑突下胸腔镜胸腺肿瘤切除术学习曲线分析

目的评估在Rul-tractor装置辅助下,经剑突下胸腔镜胸腺肿瘤切除术的手术效果和学习曲线。方法纳入2019年1月至2020年5月武警安徽省总队医院胸外科29名前纵隔肿瘤患者,由年轻外科医生独立完成Rul-tractor装置辅助下剑突下胸腔镜胸腺肿瘤切除手术。总结临床特点和手术结果,并以手术时间的累积和(CUSUM)值评价学习曲线。结果所有患者均接受全胸腺切除术,包括肿瘤R0切除,无中转至正中胸骨切开。如合并重症肌无力(Myasthenia gravis,MG)则需行前纵隔脂肪扩大清扫术,合并MG的患者有4例(13.8%);临床特点中肿瘤直径为2.6~7.0 cm,平均直径4.3±1.8 cm;位置较高骑跨于无名静脉的肿瘤18例(62.1%);术后组织学病理特征中胸腺瘤17例(59.0%)、胸腺囊肿9例(31.1%)、胸腺癌1例(3.3%)、胸腺增生1例(3.3%)、畸胎瘤1例(3.3%);手术时间70~150 min,平均时间(103.0±19.8)min,术中出血量15~100 mL,平均为(31.5±15.8)mL,带管时间1~5 d,平均(2.9±2.2)d,住院天数3~9 d,平均(5.4±2.1)d;术中术后并发症4例(13.8%),无肌无力危象发生;无术后死亡及复发病例。手术时间在19例后趋于下降平稳趋势。结论在Rul-tractor胸骨牵拉装置的辅助下实施剑突下胸腔镜胸腺肿瘤切除术,学习曲线约为19例,可被无丰富手术经验的年轻外科医生快速掌握,获得的手术结果可以接受。

Valuable Impulses and Successful Models of Gearbox Development from Practice

Gears play an important role in mechanical engineering because of their moment and speed transmission possibilities. Design and optimization of a complete gearbox provide many requirements to the designer. The complex gearbox model consists of many machine elements （shafts, gears, bearings, housing, seals, and shaft-hub connections）. The gearbox must be understood as a system with interactive parts. Next to the calculation of kinematics, load capacities and life times of single elements, aspects of load distribution and efficiency and noise excitation of gearboxes become important. The wide range of knowhow needed mostly cannot be covered by a small number of engineers. The development of automated calculation routines with understandable and comprehensive results is the goal for these research projects that lead to sottware-realizing solutions for engineers to efficiently design, calculate, optimize and verify gearboxes with minimal resources in terms of calculation experts and time.

Multi-objective Stability Control Algorithm of Heavy Tractor Semi-trailer Based on Differential Braking

Rollover and jack-knifing of tractor semi-trailer are serious threats for vehicle safety, and accordingly active safety technologies have been widely used to reduce or prevent the occurrence of such accidents. However, currently tractor semi-trailer stability control is generally only a single hazardous condition (rollover or jack-knifing) control, it is difficult to ensure the vehicle comprehensive stability of various dangerous conditions. The main objective of this study is to introduce a multi-objective stability control algorithm which can improve the vehicle stability of a tractor semi-trailer by using differential braking. A vehicle controller is designed to minimize the likelihood of rollover and jack-knifing. First a linear vehicle model of tractor semi-trailer is constructed. Then an optimal yaw control for tractor using differential braking is applied to minimize the yaw rate and lateral acceleration deviation of tractor, as well as the hitch articulation angle of tractor semi-trailer, so as to improve the vehicle stability. Second a braking scheme and variable structure control with sliding mode control are introduced in order to achieve the best braking effect. Last Fishhook maneuver is introduced to the active safety simulation and the active control system effect verification. The simulation results show that multi-objective stability control algorithm of semi-trailer could improve the vehicle stability significantly during the transient maneuvers. The proposed multi-objective stability control algorithm is effective to prevent the vehicle rollover and jackknifing.

Crack Fault Classification for Planetary Gearbox Based on Feature Selection Technique and K-means Clustering Method

During the condition monitoring of a planetary gearbox, features are extracted from raw data for a fault diagnosis.However, different features have different sensitivity for identifying different fault types, and thus, the selection of a sensitive feature subset from an entire feature set and retaining as much of the class discriminatory information as possible has a directly effect on the accuracy of the classification results. In this paper, an improved hybrid feature selection technique(IHFST) that combines a distance evaluation technique(DET), Pearson’s correlation analysis, and an ad hoc technique is proposed. In IHFST, a temporary feature subset without irrelevant features is first selected according to the distance evaluation criterion of DET, and the Pearson’s correlation analysis and ad hoc technique are then employed to find and remove redundant features in the temporary feature subset, respectively, and hence,a sensitive feature subset without irrelevant or redundant features is selected from the entire feature set. Further, the k-means clustering method is applied to classify the different kinds of health conditions. The effectiveness of the proposed method was validated through several experiments carried out on a planetary gearbox with incipient cracks seeded in the tooth root of the sun gear, planet gear, and ring gear. The results show that the proposed method can successfully distinguish the different health conditions of a planetary gearbox, and achieves a better classification performance than other methods. This study proposes a sensitive feature subset selection method that achieves an obvious improvement in terms of the accuracy of the fault classification.

Design of User Interface for Tractor Cab Real-time Information Management System

In this paper,the user interface of tractor cab real-time information management system was designed. Based on the principle of "user friendly",it reasonably arranged spatial position of information management system according to spatial distribution of tractor cab. Then,it analyzed operation habits and thinking ways of drivers,and formulated design principle meeting demands of drivers. Besides,it used LabView software to design user interface,including interface layout and interface design. User interface includes basic information interface,job information interface,camera monitoring interface,and fault diagnosis interface. Finally,it made evaluation of the user interface from color,indicator lamp,dial,and pointer. Results indicate that the designed user interface layout conforms to cognition mentality and operation habits and easy to get familiar and grasp; graphical interface is vivid and easy to stimulate pleasure of drivers in operation; interface color matching is coordinated; the layout of controls is hierarchical and logic,and operating mode is consistent with Windows system.

Research and Design of Hydro-mechanical Continuously Variable Transmission for Tractors

A new type continuous variable transmission device, a hydro-mechanical continuously variable transmission （HMCVT） for agricultural tractors is developed, which is composed of a single planetary gear differential train, a hydraulic transmission system consisted of variable displacement pump and fixed displacement motor and a multi-gear fixed step radio transmission. Based on the analysis of types of hydrostatic mechanical transmission （HMT） and styles of hydraulic transmission, the general drive scheme for HMCVT is obtained. The method of selecting mechanical parameters and hydraulic units is explained, and the stepless speed regulation characteristic of HMCVT is analyzed. This paper also specializes the calculating method of transmission efficiency. It shows that tractors assembled with HMCVT can obtain a continuously variable speed and achieve high drive efficiency.

Path-tracking Control of a Tractor-aircraft System

An aircraft tractor plays a significant role as a kind of important marine transport and support equipment. It＇s necessary to study its controlling and manoeuvring stability to improve operation efficiency. A virtual prototyping model of the tractor-aircraft system based on Lagrange＇s equation of the first kind with Lagrange mutipliers was established in this paper, According to the towing characteristics, a path-tracking controller using fuzzy logic theory was designed. Direction control herein was carried out through a compensatory tracking approach. Interactive co-simulation was performed to validate the path-tracking behavior in closed-loop, Simulation results indicated that the tractor followed the reference courses precisely on a flat ground.