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Abstract
Planetary gearboxes are key rotating motion transmission components used in many types of machinery. Syncrude Canada uses planetary gearboxes in their Fort McMurray oil sands field operations to transport stockpile for further downstream processing. There is currently no condition monitoring capability for these gearboxes. As such, unexpected failures are not detected in advance. Failure of these gearboxes results in costly bottlenecks and secondary damages. Routine inspections to check on condition of the gearbox, requiring the gearbox to be off-line, are also costly.
This thesis investigates into condition monitoring for Syncrude's planetary gearbox through analyzing the data collected at a test rig that is modeled after the one used in field operations. The condition at specific points in the testing is analyzed, and the desired fault to be detected early is identified. The Time Synchronous Averaging (TSA) preprocessing technique is applied to the original data, and results show that it is superior for modeling purposes. Health indicators and statistical control charts are applied based on the TSA model, and show clear indication of deterioration.
