Machinery facility condition monitoring method and system and abnormality diagnosis system

Abstract

An abnormality diagnosis system for diagnosing a presence or absence of an abnormality of a bearing unit for a railway vehicle axle, comprises a sensing/processing portion for outputting a signal generated from the bearing unit as an electric signal, a calculating/processing portion for making an abnormality diagnosis of the bearing unit based on an output of the sensing/processing portion, a result outputting portion for outputting a decision result of the calculating/processing portion, and a controlling/processing portion for feeding back a control signal to a control system of the railway vehicle based on the decision result.

1 . A machinery facility abnormality diagnosis system for sensing a presence or absence of an abnormality of a sliding member or a rotating body in a machinery facility, comprising: 
 a sensor unit having one of plural sensing elements for sensing a signal emitted from the machinery facility; and    a calculating/processing portion for executing a calculating process to decide the presence or absence of the abnormality in the machinery facility based on an output of the sensing element;    wherein the calculating/processing portion is composed of a microcomputer.    
     
     
         2 . A machinery facility abnormality diagnosis system according to  claim 1 , wherein the sensor unit is incorporated into the sliding member or the rotating body.  
     
     
         3 . A machinery facility abnormality diagnosis system according to  claim 2 , wherein the microcomputer is fitted to the sliding member or the rotating body or a mechanism parts that supports the sliding member or the rotating body.  
     
     
         4 . A machinery facility abnormality diagnosis system according to  claim 1 , wherein the microcomputer and the sensor unit are mounted on a single device board, and are fitted to the sliding member or the rotating body or a mechanism parts that supports the sliding member or the rotating body as a single processing unit.  
     
     
         5 . A machinery facility abnormality diagnosis system according to  claim 1 , wherein the calculating/processing portion is installed in a single casing.  
     
     
         6 . A machinery facility abnormality diagnosis system according to claim  5 , wherein the sensor unit is arranged integrally in the casing.  
     
     
         7 . A machinery facility abnormality diagnosis system according to  claim 1 , wherein the sensing element senses at least one of temperature, vibration displacement, vibration speed, vibration acceleration, force, distortion, acoustic, acoustic emission, ultrasonic waves, and rotation speed.  
     
     
         8 . A machinery facility abnormality diagnosis system according to  claim 1 , wherein the calculating/processing portion includes central processing unit, amplifier, analog/digital converter, filter, comparator, pulse counter, timer, interruption controller, ROM, RRAM, digital/analog converter, communication module, and external interface.  
     
     
         9 . A machinery facility abnormality diagnosis system according to  claim 1 , wherein the calculating/processing portion executes at least one process or more of calculation of feature parameters of a standard deviation and a peak factor, envelope detection, FFT, filtering, wavelet transform, short-time FFT, calculation of a feature frequency due to a defect of the rotating body and comparison/decision.  
     
     
         10 . A bearing unit including an inner ring having an inner ring raceway surface, an outer ring having an outer ring raceway surface, a plurality of rolling elements arranged relatively rotatably between the inner ring raceway surface and the outer ring raceway surface, and a retainer for holding rollably the rolling elements, whereby a bearing to which a radial load is applied is arranged in a bearing housing, 
 the bearing unit comprising:    an abnormality sensing means provided in a loading range of the bearing housing, for sensing an abnormality from at least one selected from a vibration sensor and a temperature sensor installed/fixed in a single case.    
     
     
         11 . A bearing unit according to  claim 10 , wherein a flat portion is provided to a part of an outer peripheral surface of the bearing housing on a loading range side, and the abnormality sensing means is fixed to the flat portion.  
     
     
         12 . A bearing unit according to  claim 11 , wherein the abnormality sensing means is arranged on an outer diameter portion of the bearing housing on the loading range side in a center portion of a bearing width.  
     
     
         13 . A bearing unit according to  claim 10 , wherein the abnormality sensing means is arranged on an outer diameter portion of the bearing housing on the loading range side in a width area of the inner ring raceway surface or the outer ring raceway surface.  
     
     
         14 . A bearing unit according to  claim 10 , wherein a case of the abnormality sensing means has a signal carrying means that sends out a sensed signal, and a decision result outputting portion that decides a presence or absence of the abnormality based on the signal sent out via the signal carrying means and output a decision result.  
     
     
         15 . A bearing unit according to  claim 10 , wherein the abnormality sensing means is embedded/fixed on a recess portion formed on the bearing housing, and then secured by molding a clearance between the abnormality sensing means and the recess portion.  
     
     
         16 . A bearing unit according to  claim 15 , wherein the abnormality sensing means is fixed to the recess portion via a spacer.