Vibration Based Pump Health Monitoring

Hydraulic pump wear reduces machine performance, causes secondary damage, and may be a precursor for catastrophic failure. A noninvasive diagnostic that can determine the level of pump wear while the pump is on the machine would reduce the costs of owning and operating a hydraulic system.

Wear that changes the vibration characteristics of the pump can be observed with an accelerometer attached to the pump's case. A series of tests were performed and diagnostic algorithms were developed. Prediction accuracy as high as 97.9% in classifying pumps as having above or below 10% flow loss was achieved.