SIMPREBAL: An Expert System for Real-Time Fault Diagnosis of Hydrogenerators Machinery

Edgar J. Amaya and Alberto J. Alvares Department of Mechanical Engineering and Mechatronics University of Brasilia Campus Universitario Darcy Ribeiro CEP 70910-900, Brasilia, DF, Brazil eamaya@unb.br, alvares@alvarestech.com

Abstract
This paper proposes an expert system to aid plant maintainers and operators personnel for solving hydroelectric equipments troubleshootings. The expert system was implemented into intelligent maintenance system called SIMPREBAL (Predictive Maintenance System of Balbina). The SIMPREBAL knowledge base, the architecture and the inference machine are presented in detail. The knowledge base is based on experts empirical knowledge, work orders, manuals, technical documents and operation procedures. The predictive maintenance system architecture is based on the OSA-CBM framework that has seven layers. The software application has been successfully implemented in client-server computational framework. The data acquisition and intelligent processing tasks were develop in the server side and the user interface in the client side. The intelligent processing task is an expert system that use JESS inference machine. During two years, the SIMPREBAL has been used for monitoring and diagnosing hydrogenerators machinery malfunctions. The industrial application of the SIMPREBAL proved its high reliability and accuracy. Finally, satisfactory fault diagnostics have been veried using maintenance indicators before and after the SIMPREBAL installation in the hydroelectric power plant. These valuable results are been used in the decision support layer to pre-schedule maintenance work, reduce inventory costs for spare parts and minimize the risk of catastrophic failure.

1. Introduction
The supervisory system of HPP (Hydroelectric Power Plant) continuously monitor different features of several equipments: bearing, heat exchanger, generators, motors, pumps, turbines, etc. The equipment features are related to a set of variables that dene the current condition. The evaluation of these variables gives some guidelines to operators to detect abnormal situations in hydroelectric gen978-1-4244-6850-8/10/$26.00 2010 IEEE

erator machinery. However, only a small set of variables can be observed and analyzed, to give useful information to the operators. On the other hand, automatic monitoring systems are, in general, able to analyze all the input values and generate alerts, alarms and trip signals. The monitoring systems warn when the numerical value of a variable is outside the range set by expert engineers. Therefore, it is a great necessity for developing of personnel supporting tools based on information technology (IT) for hydroelectric operations (i.e., repair and maintenance, troubleshooting, emergency planning, etc.). The additional software support especially towards maintenance process of hydrogenerator machinery system ([6], [9], [22] and [15]) is able to reduce operators workload, fatigue, and cognitive errors. Furthermore, the development of trouble diagnosis modules within system maintenance software provides invaluable contributions for the personnel to reduce the response time for failures. Recommended maintenance actions is when very few corrective maintenance actions are undertaken and when as little preventive maintenance as possible is performed [8]. Continuous maintenance would lead to decreased availability and high direct and indirect maintenance costs in terms of lost production, rework, scrap, labor, spare parts, nes for late orders, and lost orders due to unsatised customers [19]. This demands great skills in planning proper Condition Based Maintenance (CBM). CBM is explained as "maintenance actions based on actual condition (objective evidence of need) obtained from in-situ, non-invasive tests, operating and condition measurement" [18]. Based on RCM (Reliable Centered Maintenance) and OSA-CBM (Open System Architecture for Condition Based Maintenance) framework model, the SIMPREBAL UML (Unied Modeling Language) was proposed [4]. The developed of the OSA-CBM layes applied to predictive maintenace system is detailed [3]. The application of AI techniques, in particular ES (Expert Systems), represents a relatively new programming approach for effective fault diagnosis and trouble shooting in machines of industrial plants. AI is being used in

maintenance programs of industrial plants from common malfunctions to rarely emergencies [5]. Usually, it is difcult for operators and maintainer to analyze immediately the cause of abnormal situation and present a suggestion for maintenance action. Therefore it is critically important for a safe and steady operation of HPP to monitor health equipments in real time, to diagnose faults, and to analyze their cause promptly. The model based diagnosis would facilitate the analysis of abnormal situations. However, such models are difcult to construct due to the complexity of the equipments in hydroelectric generator systems. Therefore the use of ES (Expert Systems) is a feasible alternative enabling a time-efcient analysis of abnormal situations. Fault diagnosis that uses AI has been researched by [1], [7], [20] and [23]. Reports on ES for fault diagnostics have also been frequently published in the last decade by [2], [16] and [12]. An expert diagnosis system are capable of utilizing human knowledge and tracing the complex relations between various signals and possible results as experts do, successful diagnosis applications based on knowledge processing have often been reported. In this paper, is described the SIMPREBAL development, implementation, functions and advantages of the predictive maintenance system applied to hydroelectric equipments. Moreover is developed and implemented of knowledge-base approach system using expert system rules for fault diagnosis applied to the HPP of Balbina.
Decision Support Work order suggestions
Failures frequency and duration Failures diagnosis FMEA MTTF, MTTD, Reliability and Availability Potencial or Functional failures diagnosis Alert, Alarm and Trip signal

tric equipments show in the Table 1. OSA-CBM simplies this process by specifying a standard architecture for implementing CBM systems. This architecture has seven layers as show in the Fig. 1: data acquisition (sensors and databases), signal processing, condition monitoring, diagnostics, prognostics, decision support, and presentation. The standard describes the ow information between the seven layers. The application of the OSA-CBM framework is perform by [13], [14] and [3] as reference in their publications.

3. Implementation of the Expert System

In the design of the SIMPREBAL knowledge base is used the framework show in the Fig. 2, as detailed by [1] to construct this architecture the following items need to be considered carefully: a) The knowledge base should be well-structured. It makes the representation of domain knowledge easier and convenient for management the knowledge base; b) The inference machine should able in Java environment in order to integrate the maintenance system developed in Java; c) The system architecture should be developed based open standard and client-server framework. With these requirements in mind, the proposed system is implemented as follows.
Domain Experts
OTI MTI AMP WO

Operators

Database

Prognostic

FMEA

Explanation Instrument Knowledge Acquisition and Management Knowledge Verification

Inference Machine

Diagnostic

Presentation

Knowledge Engineer

Knowledge Base Data Acquisition

Condition Monitor

Rules

Signal Processing

Quality signal

Figure 2. Expert system framework.

Variables

Database

Data Acquisition

OPC Server

Figure 1. SIMPREBAL architecture.

2. SIMPREBAL Architecture
The SIMPREBAL implementation has a necessity of integrate a wide variety of software and hardware components to develop a diagnosis system for the hydroelec2

3.1. Knowledge acquisition The performance of the proposed system depends on quantity and quality of knowledge contained in the KB. The main knowledge source of the SIMPREBAL is experience of domain specialists. Knowledge rules in the proposed system are obtained from the experienced experts and operators of the hydroelectric plant. The knowledgebase was built based on interviews with experienced maintenance engineers and technicians, work orders, manuals, technical documentations and operations procedures. The knowledge acquisition process includes extracting, transforming and validating expertise from different information sources for developing a knowledge base [11].

Knowledge acquisition has always been the bottleneck in developing expert systems, and tends to be very long and time consuming process [17]. 3.2. Knowledge representation An hydroelectric power plant is characterized by many variables. However, the experience accumulated through years by domain experts allows for the representation of behaviour of hydroelectric plants not only by the mathematical models but also by a set of production rules. During the interview process, conversations were recorded in detail and then converted in FMEA (Failure Mode and Effect Analysis) worksheet (Tab. 2). The knowledge consists of concepts, objects, relationships and inference rules. An expert knowledge represented by statements in a natural language, by proposition or predicates. According to [21] the problem-solving knowledge of an expert can also be represented in terms of IF < Situation > THEN < Action > rule. The general framework that is being used is the rule-based ES. In such systems, expertise of an expert are encoded in the form of inference rules of the form: IF S1, S2, S3,..., Sn then A. Where Si is a situation and A is the action for these situations. The set of rules is the knowledge-base of the rule-based ES. 3.3. The inference machine Another important component of a KBS is inference engine that uses the given knowledge base to solve a problem. Besides of apply procedure tests and maintenance manuals, the experts maintenance engineers use their intuition or heuristics and understanding of how the system works to solve the problems. Based on years of experience, maintenance engineering develops an intuitive understanding of how the system will behave when a certain subsystem fails. During the preliminary system design process, several system requirements were identied to achieve the objectives of the system. Among them, programming language, friendliness of the user interface, and ability to connect with OPC (OLE - Object Linking and Embedding - for Process Control) servers, database and ES shell were regarded as necessary for the success of the SIMPREBAL. Such system requirements or specications determined the choice of the software and hardware platform used to develop the project. The ES was developed using JESS (Java Expert System Shell) as a rule engine. JESS uses an enhanced version of the Rete algorithm to process the ES rules. Rete is a very efcient mechanism for solving the difcult many-to-many matching problem [10]. The SIMPREBAL was developed in Java in client-server architecture, integrated with OPC and databases servers. 3.4. Implementation There are ve HGU (Hydroelectric Generator Unit) in the HPP of Balbina. However, all HGU are very similar, if not identical. The knowledge engineering phase of this 3

research involved the identication of the different main components and corresponding failure modes for the three systems of the HGU (Tab. 1), electric generator, bearing system and hydraulic turbine. These systems have equipments associates, the instruments and the operation limits, some of these instruments are described in the Table 1. Through extensive research, relevant data were collected of all the possible failure modes (Tab. 2) that may prevent the selected pieces of equipment from operating properly. Such data were recorded on reliability centered maintenance analysis FMEA sheets. An example of FMEA is illustrated in the Table 2. As noted in the Table 2, the sheets contain information about the machine, equipments and associated failure modes.

4. Application in hidrogenerators machinery

The rst step in the development of the system was to identify all the systems and equipments in each of the ve HGU. The list of the assets of one HGU is show in the Table 1. The assets are divided in three systems: electric generator, bearing system and hydraulic turbine. Each system has incorporated foundation eldbus transmitters in their equipments in order to monitor the process variables. The transmitters are connected to an low speed H1 network of 31.25 Kbps. To communicate the information from the H1 network to the HSE (High Speed Ethernet) network of 100 Mbps is used a DFI (Distributed Field Interface) as a bridge. The instruments in each HGU are organized by DFI devices, through of the DFIs, the instruments are capable to send their information to an OPC server.

Figure 3. Operation zones.

4.1. System inputs SIMPREBAL acquires information through the data acquisition layer, online and historic variables from OPC server and database respectively. Data from the OPC server is collected using the JOPCClient driver that is implemented in Java. The database is accessed using JDBC (Java Database Connectivity) and is used to storage faults/failures, variables related to faults/failures and decisions or maintenance action recommendations. Also, the database includes maintenance and operation personnel information. The system is foresee to communicate with another databases to integrate in the future with ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system, MES (Manufacturing Execution Systems) and others systems.

System

Electric generator

Table 1. Systems and equipments. Indicators Code Unit Normal o Coil stator Temperature 49G1A C <85 o C <80 Core stator Temperature 49G2A o C <44 Cold air Heat exchanger 26GAF1 o C <65 Hot air temperature 26GAQ1 Blind bus system pressure 63PBB mbar <15 o C <100 Coil excitation temperature 49TEA1 Metal Inferior Guide Temperature Oil Inferior Guide temperature Oil tank pressure Metal superior guide temp. Oil superior guide temp. Metal Inter. Guide temp. Metal Support Guide Temp. Oil Combined Guide temp. Oil ow Water ow Gasket water ow Gasket water pressure Cooling water temperature Oil regulation temperature 38MK1 38MJ1 63MS 38GMM1 38GMO1 38MG1 38ME1 38MI 80GMO 80GMA 80MP 63MQ 26AR 26LK C C bar o C o C o C o C o C l/min l/min
o o

Alert 100-130 100-130 44-45 70-75 18-20 105-110 70-75 60-70 0.35-0.25 70-80 63-70 70-75 80-85 65-75 30-28 65-60 80-90 3.0-2.5 32-35 46-48

Alarm 130-155 >45 75-85 >20 110-130 75-85 >70 0.25-0.06 80-85 70-75 75-85 85-90 >75 28-19 60-40 <90 2.5-1 >35 48-55

Trip >155

>85 >130 >85 <0.06 >85 >75 >85 >90 <19 <40 <1 >55

Bearing system

<60 <55 >0.35 <65 <60 <60 <75 <55 >32 >70 <75 <3 <30 <45

Hydraulic Turbine

l/min bar o C o C

4.2. System processing In this section is described the methods adopted in the information process. The knowledge base storage in rule les will be process in the signal processing, condition monitor and health assessment layers. These rules were implemented using the CLIP language and processed through Rete inference machine of the JESS. Signal processing - In this layer the system verify the connectivity of the SIMPREBAL with the DFI, OPC server and database. The connectivity test with the DFI and OPC server is done using the PING command, this command is used to verify the IP (Internet Protocol) connectivity, sending messages and waiting for the response of the ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol). The variable value change is tested in periodical cycle, if the variable values do not change means that the system stopped. In this layer is processed information about the OPC and eldbus signal quality. The rules of this layer are show in the Table 3. The rules detect the signal quality in the OPC server and in the foundation eldbus instrument. Condition Monitor - This layer receives as information the variable value. This value is compared with the values established previously. The rules showed in the Table 3 verify the relationship among variables values and machine xed thresholds (Table 1). The output of this layer is the equipment operation state. There are four thresholds that characterize the condition monitor. NORMAL: The values are inside of the normal equipment operation. ALERT: In this state, the monitored values show an incipient equipment fault. This threshold was established to nd any alteration out of normal condition. 4

ALARM: This state indicates the risk of the equipment monitored to achieve a failure stage. When is arrived to this state is require to take preventive actions in order to avoid unexpected stops. TRIP: Values in this state are considered inacceptable in the equipment operation. When this state is achieved, as a security measure, the equipments are turned off. Diagnostics - This layer uses a FMEA tool (Table 2) to nd relations between the monitored variables and the equipment faults. The operation and maintenance personnel contributed to indentify the maintenance problems in the HPP. Also were used documents like TOI (Technical Operation Instructions), TMI (Technical Maintenance Instructions) and MPA (Maintenance Planning Autonomous). Other documents used are maintenance work orders generated in the last years, in this case was analyzed in detail the failures occurrence and the maintenance procedure realized for each failure. All the information collected was used to develop a complete FMEA (i.e. see the Table 2). The following problems are identied: oil contamination, heat exchanger overheats, oil leaks, coil overheats, mechanical looseness, bearing problems, etc. The rules developed from FMEA are about failure diagnostic of the condition monitor.
TTF1 TTF2 TTF3 TTFn TTFp MTTF

...

TTR1

TTR2

TTRn-1

TTRn

Figure 4. Time to failure prediction.

Table 2. FMEA worksheet. System in Analysis: Guide bearing cooling and lubrication system Function: To dissipate heat on the guide bearing and lubrication their components Component Function Failure mode Effects Cause -Oil leaks by the 1.1. Low -Turn off the priority pump mechanical seal. pressure and turn on the alternative -Coupling damage operation pump in low pressure. -Corrosion by (2bar) -Lubrication and cooling contamination Oil failure. -Cavitations by presence air in oil 1. Pumps Oil pump 1.2. High pressure operation (6bar) -Turn off the priority pump and turn on the alternative pump in high pressure. - Pump failure risk. - Crack tubes and leaks -Lubrication and cooling failure. -Pump failure risk -Lost oils physic-chemist characteristics -Cooling failure -Oil contamination risk -Lost oils physic-chemist characteristics -cooling failure -Cooling failure

Control Oil pressure transmitter in the pump out

-Incorrect adjustment

Oil pressure transmitter in the pump out

1.3. Abnormal sound 2.1. Insufcient cool of oil

-Bearing wear -Bad bearing lubrication -Plate pack with noise -Stud bolt wear -Plate pack connections slack -Slack tubes connections of water

Sound inspection Temperature transmitter

2. Heat exchanger

To cool the oil

2.2. Oil leaks

Oil ow transmitter Water ow transmitter

2.3. Water leaks

Prognostics- The failure prognostics are the mean estimation of the RUL calculated through RCM concepts. For the prognostic calculus is necessary to get the ALERT, ALARM and TRIP registers from the SIMPREBAL database. An other essencial information are fault or failure initial and nal date and time, frequency, MTTD (Mean Time To Diagnose) and MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures). The graphic representation of the MTTD and MTBF is illustrated in the Fig. 3 and the governed by the Eq. (1) and Eq. (2). The time to failure prognosis is calculated using the average of the past TTF (Time To Failure) as showed in the Fig. 4. MTTD = tnormal operation nCM +nPM tdefective operation nCM (1)

decision related to an eventual failure diagnostic was previously storage in the SIMPREBAL database. This layer sends the information relative to each fault or failure to the presentation layer.

4.3. System output The presentation layer is the client side of the clientserver architecture. This client was built as a web application available over the intranet or internet. This application was developed in HTML pages, applet Java, JavaScript and PHP structures. This OSA-CBM layer presents the information of the previous layers. When the system detects a fault, information about the type of fault is send to the user through email, storage in database and advisory in the synoptic window. The database tables containing relevant information on the pieces of equipment considered by the knowledge base. The window, shown in the Fig. 5. displays the HGU, each one display the components fault/failure and actions recommendations. This screen contains explanatory messages intended to inform the user about faults advisory in the ve HGU. 5

MTTF =

(2)

where: CM is Corrective Maintenance and PM is Preventive Maintenance. Decision Support - The decision support is a maintenance service order developed from the FMEA. All the

Table 3. Rules structure Rules - IF (quality == 3) THEN (COM-GOOD) Signal ELSE (COM-BAD) Processing - IF (COM-GOOD and (status == 2 or status == 3)) THEN (signal-GOOD) ELSE (signal-BAD) Layers - IF (signal-GOOD and value 105) THEN (condition-NORMAL) - IF (signal-GOOD and value > 105 and value 130) THEN (condition-HIGH) - IF (signal-GOOD and value > 130 and value 155) THEN (condition-ALARM) - IF (signal-GOOD and value 155) THEN (condition-TRIP) - IF (condition-HIGH) THEN (code-G149H and color-YELOW and email-OPERATORS) - IF (condition-ALARM) THEN (code-G149A and color-RED and email-ELECTRICIANS) - IF (condition-TRIP) THEN (code-G149T and color-RED and email-ENGINEERS)
%

Fault Diagnosis

Historic Tendency Chart

Variable Inspection Window Decision Support

Condition Monitor

Hierarchic Tree

Figure 5. The SIMPREBAL user interface.

70 08 Jul
Jun 08 Aug 08 60 08 Sep Oct 08 50 08 Nov Dec 08 40 09 Jan Feb 09 30 09 Mar Apr 20 09 May 09 Jun 09 10 09 Jul Aug 09 0 Sep 09 Oct 09 18,7 25,7 35,9 45,7 43,6 49,6 55,6 54 56,7 58,8 24,5 61,5 66,4 18,7 53,4 51,4 61,3 62,1 65,4

45,7 43,6 35,9 25,7

49,6

58,8 55,6 54 56,7

61,5

66,4 53,4 51,4

65,4 61,3 62,1

22,3

Diagnostic

Figure 6. ES diagnosis success trend.

4.4. Results Where there are specic maintainability requirements or goals, which must be obtained by a system, then there is a need to determine the systems quantitative maintainability characteristics. This could be represented in terms of a percentage of success, MTTR (Mean Time To Repair) and MTBF. In the past the analysis was made by the operational and maintenance personnel, but at now the SIMPREBAL generate suggestion of decisions and the operator decide if the suggestion will be adopted or not. The system was installed in march 2008, considered an analysis period of 500 days. The ES detects failures presents in the KB and an operator need to check if the ES detection is true. The information introduced by the operator is used to calculate the success indicator. The SIMPREBAL success to detect fault and failure in the HPP is calculated through of the Eq. (3). The trend of the percentage of success is shown in the Fig. 6. A disadvantage of ES is that fault and failure detection is performed considering only the rules store in the KB. New failure modes need to be store in the KB in order to be detected by the SIMPREBAL. Predictive maintenance system based on ES needs to be update as soon as new failures appear. With this requirement the SIMPREBAL can be more accurate detecting equipments failures. 6

%Success =

N Failures detected N failures

(3)

40 30 20 10 0

MTTR-Mean Time To Repair 30

800 600

MTBF-Mean Time Between Failure 650 680

15

18 8,4 6,5

400 200 0 44 2005 95 83 2007 2008 2009

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2006

Figure 7. Key performance indicators. The SIMPREBAL key performance indicators are shown in the Fig. 7. The MTTR of the ve HGU of the HPP in the last years is calculated based on the Eq. (4). Furthermore, the MTBF indicator is calculated using the Eq. (5). The MTTR decrease after the SIMPREBAL installation and the MTBF increase, the reason is that some fault and failure can be detected more early. The maintenance decision is taken quickly by the operators, reading the ES suggestions offered in natural language. MTTR = Total time of the component repair N of repairs Operational period N failures

(4)

MTBF =

(5)

Conclusion

An expert system of real-time fault diagnosis for the HPP of Balbina equipments has been developed in this paper. Java environment, Apache, PHP and MySQL Server have been used in the developing the proposed system. SIMPREBAL has been successfully implemented using the OSA-CBM framework where is possible to develop in modular way, processing distributed and easily scalable. The benets to the organizations include reduction in machine down time, reduction in skill level for maintenance activities and speedy response. This study dealt with the design and development of a knowledge-based diagnosis system, the inference machine, and the knowledge maintenance that determine the optimal structure of the system. The reliability of diagnosis is highly dependent on the accuracy information from online and historic sources. The strategies are proven to be effective in real applications. SIMPREBAL helps the operators to eliminate potential faults of the equipments. If a fault symptom appears, the corresponding fault causes can be identied by the proposed system and actions suggested to the operators. Based on the SIMPREBAL information generated is analyzed the percentage of success, MTTR and MTBF as key performance indicators. This indicators shows that SIMPREBAL shows good performance in the percentage of success, the MTTR was decreased and the MTBF as increased after the IMS installation. However, at present the system is not able to perform self-learning. Therefore, in the future work, we are going to not only collect more empirical knowledge from the experts, but also apply decision tree algorithm to learn rules from the historical data and develop the prognostic layer based on the historical data of the faults/failures and its associates variables stored in the SIMPREBAL database, this layer will be capable to calculate the RUL (Remaining Useful Life) of the hydroelectric equipments.

Acknowledgment

We acknowledge the support of the Eletronorte and Manaus Energia provided by the Research and Development Program under contract number 4500052325, project number 128 "Modernization of Processes Automation Area of the Hydroelectric power stations of Balbina and Samuel", that has as a technical responsible Prof. Alberto Jose Alvares of the UnB, the engineer Antonio Araujo from Eletronorte played a signicant role in this project.

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