Monitoring of Mechanical Seal Failure with Artificial Neural Network

신경회로망을 이용한 미케니컬 실의 이상상태 감시

The mechanical seals, which are installed in rotating machines like pump and compressor, are gengrally used as sealing devices in the many fields of industries. The failure of mechanical seals such as leakage,fast and severe wear, excessive torque, and squeaking results in big problems. To monitor the failure of mechanical seals and to propose the proper monitoring techniques with artificial neural network, sliding wear experiments were conducted. Torque and temperature of the mechanical seals were measured during experiments. Optical microstructure was observed for the wear processing after every 10 minute sliding at rotation speed of 1750 rpm and scanning electron microscopy was also observed. During the experiment, the variation of torque and temperature that meant an abnormal phenomenon, was observed. That experimental data recorded were applied to the developed monitoring system with artificial neural network. This study concludes that torque and temperature of mechanical seals wil be used to identify and to monitor the condition of sliding motion of mechanical seals. An availability to monitor the mechanical seal failure with artificial neural network was confirmed.