Electric Power Signature Analysis for High Pressure Water Jet Pumps Fault Classification

Water jet and Abrasive Water Jet (WJ/AWJ) are manufacturing technologies suitable for particular operations (cutting, milling, turning, surface treatment, etc.) on different types of materials. The use of water (or water mixed to abrasive in AWJ technology) allows working both soft and hard materials without damaging the interested area of the workpiece. In previous studies the authors have just shown how it is possible to detect wrong operating conditions or to foresee them for an AWJ system analyzing the instantaneous electric power signal measured at the supply section of the system. Starting from this assumption, it is possible to define a monitoring procedure operating on the supply section of the plant, that performs a non intrusive continuous diagnostic activity during all the plant components’ life. In particular in this work, a procedure based on the analysis and classification of the instantaneous power signal features is presented. The followed approach is based on the electric power signal signature analysis.