PROMOSHYGES: A monitoring and protection System for hydro turbine -- Generator Sets

The high losses produced by a non programmed shutdown and the need to extend the life of the machinery have generated an increasing attention to the development of tools to assess the condition of the machinery in a predictable manner. A project was funded by the Commission of the EU to develop a prototype taking into account the capability that the vibrations monitoring has demonstrated to detect the mechanical and electrical--mechanical related problems. The prototype of the developed system is integrated by several components developed and designed according with the most recent and reliable technology: an advanced data acquisition and preprocessing Unit (DASPU) based on digital signal processing technologies acquire and pre-process large bandwidth signals and transfer the information to an host computer via a digital communication network. A commercial unit has been used to acquire static signals like temperature, active and reactive power, etc.; a set of software modules to manage the information, static signals and dynamic; software tools to support predictive analysis, data trend and isolation of possible faults. Predictive analysis and data trend are based on the comparison between measured or derived scalar and/or vectorial quantities and the estimated one for the measured operating condition; the statisticalmore » dynamic Kriging technique, requiring only a sparse population of data acquired at different operating condition has been adopted. An artificial neural network technique provides another tool for predictive analysis automatically adaptable for changing conditions; alert and alarm functions implemented via software. The paper presents a short description and the main features of the system and the main results, in term of reliability and performances, obtained in more than one year monitoring of the Villarino Power Plant owned by IBERDROLA, the most important private utility in Spain.« less