Application of Multiple-Model Estimation Method to Rotor Fault Diagnosis

The diagnosis and prediction of rotor fault is a key problem of rotor dynamics. In this investigation, a Multiple Model Estimator (MME) based method for typical rotor fault diagnosis is proposed. On a test rotor, crack and misalignment faults are produced respectively. Aiming at the test rotor, the normal, crack and misalignment rotor models are built accordingly. Based on these rotor models, a MME built with Kalman filters is setup with considering different crack and misalignment parameters. Via the estimation of the measured responses of the test rotor by MME, the rotor faults are identified successfully. It is proved that this proposed method is effective in the fault diagnosis, especially in the early stage of rotor faults.