A non-iterative partial discharge source location method for transformers employing acoustic emission techniques

Partial discharge (PD) causes premature insulation failure of transformers. It is essential to detect PD to avoid unwanted failure of transformers. Only detection of PD is not sufficient for a transformer of huge size, unless it is possible to locate. Acoustic partial discharge measurement is advantageous for PD source location. There are different algorithms for PD source location. These are iterative and require large number of acoustic emission (AE) sensors. This paper presents a non-iterative source location algorithm employing four AE sensors. This algorithm is applied to experimental data. Proposed algorithm is also applied to published data and compared with existing iterative methods. Main error for source location is due to arrival time calculation. In order to reduce the error in AE signal arrival time calculation, different arrival time calculation methods are discussed and a comprehensive method is proposed. By applying these methods, arrival time is calculated from measured signal.     

非本征F-P局部放电光纤传感器设计及灵敏度分析

为解决超声波法检测电力设备局部放电灵敏度低问题,提出一种采用石英膜片的全电介质结构的光纤法 珀超声传感器设计方法。为获得适于局放检测频响特性的法 珀传感器,根据弹性力学原理分析法 珀传感器固有频率随膜片尺寸参数变化规律,利用ANSYS有限元仿真方法设计3种不同结构尺寸的法 珀传感器。在绝缘油箱中采用信号发生器驱动压电陶瓷传感器发射50 kHz~250 kHz超声波,获得F P传感器的幅频特性曲线。F P1~F P3对板 板电极局放声信号检测实验表明,设计传感器一阶固有频率在150 kHz处可有效检测局放,且相同固有频率下F P传感器灵敏度随膜片厚度减小而显著提高。相同结构参数下腔长为130 m和100 m的F P传感器检测灵敏度前者是后者的2.47倍,实验结果表明增加F P腔长可提高传感器局放检测灵敏度。     

Identification of two simultaneous partial discharge sources in an oil-pressboard insulation system using acoustic emission techniques

Insulation failure is one of the major causes of catastrophic failure of transformers. It is established that partial discharge (PD) causes insulation degradation and premature failure of insulation. In power apparatus, more than one PD source may be active simultaneously. The nature of insulation degradation for multiple PD sources is different from that due to single PD source. Therefore, it will be helpful for severity assessment of insulation degradation, if the number of active PD sources are identified and classified. This paper presents a method for identification and classification of two simultaneously active PD sources using acoustic emission techniques. The acoustic emission (AE) signals are measured for laboratory simulated PD in an oil-pressboard insulation system for three different electrode systems. The measurements of partial discharge acoustic emission (PDAE) signals are carried out for single PD source and for two simultaneous PD sources. The measured signals are analyzed using discrete wavelet transform (DWT), box counting fractal dimension and lacunarity. Box counting fractal dimension and lacunarity are calculated for DWT decomposed signal of major frequency band. Energy distribution in different frequency bands of DWT decomposed signal along with box counting fractal dimension and lacunarity is used for classification of two simultaneous PD sources.     

Measurements and analysis of the acoustic signals produced by partial discharges in insulation oil

This paper focuses on the frequency analysis of acoustic signals produced by partial discharges (PDs) in insulation oil and the positioning of the PD occurrence for application in the diagnosis of oil-insulated transformers. Three types of electrode systems; the needle–plane, the plane–plane, and the wire–wire structures were assembled to simulate the partial discharge in insulation oil. A low-noise amplifier and a de-coupler were designed to detect the acoustic signal with high-sensitivity. The frequency ranges of the acoustic signal were 60–270 kHz in the needle–plane electrode system, 45–250 kHz in the plane–plane electrode system, and 50–180 kHz in the wire–wire electrode system. Their peak frequencies were 145 kHz, 118 kHz and 121 kHz, respectively.The position of the PD occurrence was calculated from the time difference of arrival (TOA) using three acoustic emission (AE) sensors. The position was found within a 1% error in the experimental set-up.     

New automatic localization technique of acoustic emission signals in thin metal plates

In acoustic emission (AE) measurement, the information of the arrival time is very important for event location, event identification and source mechanism analysis. Manual picks are time-consuming and sometimes subjective, especially in the case of large volumes of digital data. Various techniques have been presented in the literature and are routinely used in practice such as amplitude threshold, analysis of the long-term average/short-term average (LTA/STA), high-order statistics or artificial neural networks.A new automatic determination technique of the first arrival times of AE signals is presented for thin metal plates. Based on Akaike’s information criterion, proposed algorithm of the first arrival detection uses a specific characteristic function, which is sensitive to change of frequency in contrast to others such as envelope of the signal. The approach is applied to data sets of three different tests. Reliable results show the potential of our approach.     

一种用于变压器局部放电在线监测的光纤声发射传感器实验研究

提出了一种光纤声发射传感器并构建传感系统实现变压器局部放电在线监测,利用传感光栅体积小,重量轻,灵敏度高和抗电磁干扰的特点,将传感器置于变压器内部实现局部放电声发射信号的测量。研究了传感光栅实现声发射应力波测量的机理,声发射信号引起传感光栅反射光谱发生漂移,导致特定频点处反射光强发生变化,通过反射光强的变化实现声发射信号的测量。构建声发射传感系统实验模型并提出了一种系统性能优化策略,使系统工作在传感光栅反射光谱上升或下降沿的半峰值频点处,从而保障传感系统具有良好的线性输出特性;研究传感系统工作点稳定技术,设计信号反馈回路自动跟踪反射光谱的漂移,保证系统稳定工作在传感光栅半峰值频点处,消除温度变化对传感系统测量精度的影响。将封装好的传感器用于变压器局部放电现场检测,结果表明,光纤光栅声发射传感器与压电传感器相比具有灵敏度高、动态范围宽等优点,可以实现变压器局部放电在线监测。     

Determining tomographic arrival times based on matched filter processing: considering the impact of ocean waves

Reflection of high-frequency acoustic signals from an air-sea interface with waves is considered in terms of determining travel times for acoustic tomography. Wave-induced, multi-path rays are investigated to determine how they influence the assumption that the time of the largest matched filter magnitude between the source and receiver signals is the best estimate of the arrival time of the flat-surface specular ray path. A simple reflection model is developed to consider the impact of in-plane, multi-path arrivals on the signal detected by a receiver. It is found that the number of multi-path rays between a source and receiver increases significantly with the number of times the ray paths strike the ocean surface. In test cases, there was always one of the multi-path rays that closely followed the flat-surface specular ray path. But all the multi-path rays arrive at the receiver almost simultaneously, resulting in interference with the signal from the flat-surface specular ray path. As a result, multi-path arrivals due to open ocean surface waves often distort the received signal such that maxima of matched filtering magnitudes will not always be a reliable indicator of the arrival time of flat-surface specular ray paths.     

Acoustic emission localization in beams based on time reversed dispersion

The common approach for the localization of acoustic emission sources in beams requires at least two measurements at different positions on the structure. The acoustic emission event is then located by evaluating the difference of the arrival times of the elastic waves. Here a new method is introduced, which allows the detection and localization of multiple acoustic emission sources with only a single, one point, unidirectional measurement. The method makes use of the time reversal principle and the dispersive behavior of the flexural wave mode. Whereas time-of-arrival (TOA) methods struggle with the distortion of elastic waves due to phase dispersion, the method presented uses the dispersive behavior of guided waves to locate the origin of the acoustic emission event. Therefore, the localization algorithm depends solely on the measured wave form and not on arrival time estimation. The method combines an acoustic emission experiment with a numerical simulation, in which the measured and time reversed displacement history is set as the boundary condition.     

Leak location in gas pipelines using cross-time–frequency spectrum of leakage-induced acoustic vibrations

The correlation-based location methods are widely used in leak detection of the pipelines assuming that the acoustic speed has been known and constant. In practice, the acoustic speed is frequency-varying due to the dispersions of gas-leak-induced acoustic waves, and thus the assumption is not supported. In this work, a location scheme based on cross-time–frequency spectrum (CTFS) is intended for the gas-leak-induced acoustic waves with frequency-varying acoustic speed. In the scheme, the CTFS is obtained by the one-dimensional Fourier transform of the time domain convolution between the kernel function in correlation domain and the instantaneous cross-correlation of the two spatially separately collected acoustic signals on either sides of a leakage. Then, the time difference of arrival (TDOA) and the corresponding frequency information are extracted simultaneously when the CTFS reaches the maximum value. The resulting peak frequency is used to online determine the frequency-dependant acoustic speed in combination with the known dispersive curve of gas-leak-induced dominated mode. Finally, the gas leakage is located by the TDOA and the frequency-dependant acoustic speed of real-time determination instead of constant acoustic speed. Consequently, for the proposed scheme, the constant acoustic speed is no longer a prerequisite. The proposed scheme has been experimentally validated in leak detection of gas pipelines and results demonstrate that the average relative location errors are reduced by six times compared with the commonly used correlation-based location method.     

Roller bearing acoustic signature extraction by wavelet packet transform,applications in fault detection and size estimation

Continuous online monitoring of rotating machines is necessary to assess real-time health conditions so as to enable early detection of operation problems and thus reduce the possibility of downtime. Rolling element bearings are crucial parts of many machines and there has been an increasing demand to find effective and reliable health monitoring technique and advanced signal processing to detect and diagnose the size and location of incipient defects. Condition monitoring of rolling element bearings, comprises four main stages which are, statistical analysis, fault diagnostics, defect size calculation, and prognostics. In this paper the effect of defect size, operating speed, and loading conditions on statistical parameters of acoustic emission (AE) signals, using design of experiment method (DOE), have been investigated to select the most sensitive parameters for diagnosing incipient faults and defect growth on rolling element bearings. A modified and effective signal processing algorithm is designed to diagnose localized defects on rolling element bearings components under different operating speeds, loadings, and defect sizes. The algorithm is based on optimizing the ratio of Kurtosis and Shannon entropy to obtain the optimal band pass filter utilizing wavelet packet transform (WPT) and envelope detection. Results show the superiority of the developed algorithm and its effectiveness in extracting bearing characteristic frequencies from the raw acoustic emission signals masked by background noise under different operating conditions. To experimentally measure the defect size on rolling element bearings using acoustic emission technique, the proposed method along with spectrum of squared Hilbert transform are performed under different rotating speeds, loading conditions, and defect sizes to measure the time difference between the double AE impulses. Measurement results show the power of the proposed method for experimentally measuring size of different fault shapes using acoustic emission signals.     

Acoustic partial discharge localization methodology in power transformers employing the quantum genetic algorithm

Partial discharge (PD) is one of staple reasons resulting in the deterioration of insulation system in power transformers and power faults. If the PD activity can be located at an early stage, preventive maintenance measures can be taken effectively. Therefore, the localization techniques of the PD do play an extraordinarily momentous role to enhance the operating reliability and stability of the system. It is proposed that a methodology based on the quantum genetic algorithm (QGA) adopting acoustic emission (AE) techniques for locating PD in power transformers. Results of the calculating example confirm the localization effectiveness and accurateness of the proposed method are ideal and satisfactory, and that precision of localization is enhanced compared to some other localization algorithms. The acoustic localization methodology based on the QGA is feasible and of suitability for the field applications.     

板状结构Lamb波频散补偿与聚焦接收成像检测

对板状结构中Lamb波的频散和多模现象进行了理论分析,采用有限元仿真方法获取了Lamb波与缺陷作用后的回波信号,对信号进行聚焦接收处理,即在一定距离范围内利用导波频散特性对各个模式信号进行频散补偿,提取补偿后信号的幅值,结果表明当所得信号幅值最大时,所对应的补偿距离等于缺陷与换能器之间的实际距离.利用这一结论,提出了以...     

Acoustic emission source location in plates using wavelet analysis and cross time frequency spectrum

In this study, the theories of wavelet transform and cross-time frequency spectrum (CTFS) are used to locate AE source with frequency-varying wave velocity in plate-type structures. A rectangular array of four sensors is installed on the plate. When an impact is generated by an artificial AE source such as Hsu–Nielsen method of pencil lead breaking (PLB) at any position of the plate, the AE signals will be detected by four sensors at different times. By wavelet packet decomposition, a packet of signals with frequency range of 0.125–0.25 MHz is selected. The CTFS is calculated by the short-time Fourier transform of the cross-correlation between considered packets captured by AE sensors. The time delay is calculated when the CTFS reaches the maximum value and the corresponding frequency is extracted per this maximum value. The resulting frequency is used to calculate the group velocity of wave velocity in combination with dispersive curve. The resulted locating error shows the high precision of proposed algorithm.     

Internal tissue displacement measurement based on ultrasonic wave Doppler signal digital detection and its application to fetal movement monitoring

We have developed a fetal movement monitoring system based on small displacement measurement of internal tissues. When ultrasonic pulses are transmitted to the fetus, the reflected ultrasonic waves which have a Doppler frequency shift due to the fetal movements are detected by using an ultrasonic pulsed Doppler technique. In this paper, we propose a displacement measurement method for internal tissues which is based on the Doppler signal digital detection technique. In the method, the received ultrasonic RF signals are sampled with a sampling frequency of four times higher than the centre frequency of the ultrasonic waves; the Doppler frequency shift signals are derived using digital signal processing. From the detected signals, the internal displacements are estimated using the arc-tangent method. The basic algorithm of the detection method has already been used in the area of blood flow sensing, however, we apply the algorithm to the displacement measurement of internal tissues. The comparison between the proposed method and the conventional method is presented. The fetal movement quantitative monitoring system based on the method which has been constructed is shown.     

Reversal of waves in forward-scattering location

Potentialities of the pulsed acoustic forward-scattering location with the use of time separation of the intense direct and weak scattered signals propagating at a small angle to one another are considered. Two types of interference are taken into account: nonstationary observation conditions under the effect of currents, which affect the arrival times of the direct and scattered signals, and nonstationary reverberation. It is shown that, in the presence of these interferences, the application of the correlation transformation equivalent to the time reversal of waves has an advantage over the conventional location technique based on the determination of the signal travel times.     

正交异性钢桥面板声发射波三维谱元法模拟及损伤定位*

针对大跨度桥梁正交异性钢桥面板的疲劳损伤评估与结构健康监测需求,开展基于声发射波场谱元法模拟的大型复杂板类结构损伤定位研究。采用Legendre高阶插值三维时域谱元法模拟声发射波在正交异性钢桥面板中的传播过程,验证了其内部显著的反射、衍射和频散现象,并代替人工预断铅实测试验获得大量声发射数据。然后,利用赤池信息准则判定声发射波到达各传感器的时间,通过高斯过程回归建立到达时差与声发射源位置的关系模型,用于未知损伤的定位监测。数值模型实验结果表明,赤池信息准则和高斯过程回归改进的时差图法在正交异性钢桥面板中的平均定位误差为37.3 mm(25 dB信噪比工况),平板的定位精度高于U肋。谱元法模拟有望代替繁琐的预断铅实测试验,提升声发射时差图系列损伤定位方法的实用性。     

Interaction of Rayleigh waves with a rib attached to a plate

An analysis of the interaction of a pulse of Rayleigh waves on a plate with a rectangular flange or rib attached in the far field of its acoustic emission (AE) source is presented. A finite difference (FD) model is used to give numerical visualizations of the development of the complete wave-field propagating through the structure and also to give displacement data for selected points. An ‘energy partition model’, for Rayleigh wave propagation across the rib has been developed and is described. Ray theory wave arrival time calculations are given for the propagation of various mode-converted components transmitted across the flange. A series of experimental measurements of AE wave propagation across a T-butt welded rib on a plate were made and these are compared with the model predictions. The practical implications of these findings for acoustic emission monitoring of large structures of complex shape are discussed.