Rolling Bearing Remaining Useful Life Prediction Based on Wiener Process

Rolling bearing is the key part of mechanical system.Accurate prediction of bearing life can reduce maintenance costs,improve availability,and prevent catastrophic consequences,aiming at solving the problem of the nonlinear,random and small sample problems faced by rolling bearings in actual operating conditions.In this work,the nonlinearWiener process with random effect and unbiased estimation of unknown parameters is used to predict the remaining useful life of rolling bearings.Firstly,random effects and nonlinear parameters are added to the traditional Wiener process,and a parameter unbiased estimation method is used to estimate the positional parameters of the constructed Wiener model.Finally,the model is validated using a common set of bearing datasets.Experimental results show that compared with the traditional maximum likelihood function estimation method,the parameter unbiased estimation method can effectively improve the accuracy and stability of the parameter estimation results.The model has a good fitting effect,which can accurately predict the remaining useful life of rolling bearing.

Water Footprint in a Basket of Exportable Agricultural Products of San Juan Province

This paper calculates the water footprint(WF)and virtual water(VW)for a basket of exportable agricultural products of San Juan province.This basket includes:onion,white garlic and grapes for raisins.The VW of these three productions is calculated and the consumption is evaluated in relation to the theoretical water reservoir capacity of the province.It is compared with results of other jobs.The methodology used is based on the WF assessment manual and on Food and Agriculture Organization’s(FAO’s)CROPWAT 8.0 model to identify the crops’water requirements and on the CIMWAT 2.0 climate database.Finally,recommendations are made for a more efficient use of water for agricultural production.

Variation for Health-Enhancing Compounds and Traits in Onion (Allium cepa L.) Germplasm

Consumption of onion has been associated with reduced incidence of chronic diseases. Phenolic, organosulfur and carbohydrate compounds present are largely responsible for these effects. This study examined compositional variation for health-enhancing compounds in a genetically diverse collection of onion cultivars. Total antioxidant activity and aroma profiles were characterized. Significant variation in bulb concentration for total and individual phenolic compounds, thiosulfinates, carbohydrates, and total and soluble solids was found. The range of variation was particularly large (>50-fold difference between the cultivars with the highest and lowest content) for fructo-oligosaccharides (FOS) and the polyphenols quercetin, epigallocatechin gallate and epicatechin gallate. Amino acid profiles varied significantly as well with substantial variation (~10 fold) observed in both total and essential amino acids. Total antioxidant activity was positively correlated with polyphenols content, and quercetin in particular (r = 0.83), suggesting a major contribution from phenolic compounds to onion antioxidant properties. Significant positive correlation was also found between solids and thiosulfinates content (r = 0.74) and between solids and FOS (r = 0.81), suggesting a dilution/concentration effect for organosulfur compounds and FOS in onion bulbs. The present study revealed broad variation for health-enhancing compounds content in onion germplasm, which can be exploited in breeding programs aiming at increasing onion nutraceutical value.

Rolling Bearing Condition Monitoring Technique Based on Cage Rotation Analysis and Acoustic Emission

In this paper,we present an alternative technique for detecting changes in the operating conditions of rolling element bearings(REBs)that can lead to premature failure.The developed technique is based on measuring the kinematics of the bearing cage.The rotational motion of the cage is driven by traction forces generated in the contacts of the rolling elements with the races.It is known that the cage angular frequency relative to shaft angular frequency depends on the bearing load,the bearing speed,and the lubrication condition since these factors determine the lubricant film thickness and the associated traction forces.Since a large percentage of REB failures are due to misalignment or lubrication problems,any evidence of these conditions should be interpreted as an incipient fault.In this paper,a novel method for the measurement of the instantaneous angular speed(IAS)of the cage is developed.The method is evaluated in a deep groove ball bearing test rig equipped with a cage IAS sensor,as well as a custom acoustic emission(AE)transducer and a piezoelectric accelerometer.The IAS of the cage is analyzed under different bearing loads and shaft speeds,showing the dependence of the cage angular speed with the calculated lubricant film thickness.Typical bearing faulty operating conditions(mixed lubrication regime,lubricant depletion,and misalignment)are recreated.It is shown that the cage IAS is dependent on the lubrication regime and is sensitive to misalignment.The AE signal is also used to evaluate the lubrication regime.Experimental results suggest that the proposed technique can be used as a condition monitoring tool in industrial environments to detect abnormal REB conditions that may lead to premature failure.

Online Unbalance Detection and Diagnosis on Large Flexible Rotors by SVR and ANN trained by Dynamic Multibody Simulations

Multiple-stage steam turbine generators,like those found in nuclear power plants,pose special challenges with regards to mechanical unbalance diagnosis.Several factors contribute to a complex vibrational response,which can lead to incorrect assessments if traditional condition monitoring strategies are used without considering the mechanical system as a whole.This,in turn,can lead to prolonged machinery downtime.Several machine learning techniques can be used to integrally correlate mechanical unbalance along the shaft with transducer signals from rotor bearings.Unfortunately,this type of machinery has scarce data regarding faulty behavior.However,a variety of fault conditions can be simulated in order to generate these data using computational models to simulate the dynamic response of individual machines.In the present work,a multibody model of a 640MWsteam turbine flexible rotor is employed to simulate mechanical unbalance in several positions along the shaft.Synchronous components of the resulting vibration signals at each bearing are obtained and utilized as training data for two regression models designed for mechanical unbalance diagnosis.The first approach uses an artificial neural network and the second one utilizes a support vector regression algorithm.In order to test their performance,the stiffness of each bearing in the multibody simulation was altered between 50%and 150%of the training model values,random noise was added to the signal and several dynamic unbalance conditions were simulated.Results show that both approaches can reliably diagnose dynamic rotor unbalance even when there is a typical degree of uncertainty in bearing stiffness values.