<p>Vibrating screens are industrial machines used to sort aggregates through their high rotational accelerations. Utilized in mining operations, they are able to screen dozens of tonnes of material per hour. To enhance maintenance and troubleshooting, this thesis introduces a vibration based condition monitoring system capable of observing machine operation. Using acceleration data collected from remote parts of the machine, software continuously detects for abnormal operation triggered by fault conditions. Users are to be notified in the event of a fault and be provided with relevant information.</p> <p>Acceleration data is acquired from a set of sensor devices that are mounted to specified points on the vibrating screen. Data is then wirelessly transmitted to a centralized unit for digital signal processing. Existing sensor devices developed for a previous project have been upgraded and integrated into the monitoring system. Alternative communication technologies and the utilized Wi-Fi network are examined and discussed.</p> <p>The condition monitoring system's hardware and software was designed following engineering principles. Development produced a functional prototype system, implementing the monitoring process. The monitoring technique utilizes signal filtering and processing to compute a set of variables that reveal the status of the machine. Decision making strategies are then employed as to determine when a fault has occurred.</p> <p>Testing performed on the developed monitoring system has also been documented. The performance of the prototype system is examined as different fault scenarios are induced and monitored. Results and descriptions of virtual simulations and live industrial experiments are presented. The relationships between machine faults and detected fault signatures are also discussed.</p> / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

<p>Vibrating screens are mechanical machines used to sort granulated materials based on their particle size. Utilized in the mining industry, these machines can sort tonnes of materials per hour. In the past, McMaster University developed sensor devices that measure and transmit vibration data of these machines to a central data acquisition unit for analysis, tuning, and maintenance purposes. In this thesis, I present the development of two new software systems that are used to process, manage, and present the information gained from these measurements. The first system, the offline vibration analysis software, is used to analyze the vibration data in both time and frequency domain, and presents the measured and calculated data in textual and graphical forms. The second system, the online vibration analysis software, is used by vibrating screens manufacturers and their customers to gather and manage vibration data collected from their vibrating screens by utilizing a central storage. The development process of these systems followed an iterative and incremental approach with continuous feedback from stakeholders. It included extensive requirements gathering to define a model, in terms of data representation, that captures the business logic and practices of the industry. Furthermore, it used standard architectures such as Model View Controller (MVC) and advanced technologies such as Object Relationship Mapping (ORM) for data access to increase flexibility and maintainability. Finally, comprehensive unit testing and thorough security risks evaluation were conducted in order to ensure that these systems are secure and bug free.</p> / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

Recentemente, uma mudança de paradigma vem impactando toda a engenharia e manufatura na forma de se planejar, projetar, testar e construir produtos. A forma mais tradicional de desenvolvimento, que se caracterizava pelo processo seriado de múltiplos ciclos de design-construção-teste, vem sendo substituída gradativamente por processos de desenvolvimento guiados por simulação computacional. Decorrentes disso, os primeiros protótipos físicos são freqüentemente capazes de atingir os objetivos quando testados. Esta mudança, chamada também de projeto baseado em simulação, permite reduzir drasticamente o tempo de desenvolvimento de produtos e trazer a inovação para o mercado. Este trabalho apresenta uma forma computacional, via técnica de multicorpos, para se analisar a dinâmica de uma lavadora de eixo vertical. É proposto um protótipo virtual no software ADAMS, para estudo dinâmico de uma lavadora durante o processo crítico de centrifugação. O modelo virtual é posteriormente confrontado com dados experimentais, para sua validação. Uma extensa pesquisa bibliográfica foi realizada, com a intenção de capturar as técnicas mais usuais de modelamento e estudo dinâmico em lavadoras, bem como de compreender melhor o papel de seus componentes durante o processo crítico de centrifugação. / Recently a paradigm shift has impacted the engineering and manufacturing in the way of planning, designing, testing and building products. The most traditional way of product development, characterized by multiple cycles of design-build-test, has been substituted by a process based on computational simulation, where the first physical prototypes are capable of delivering the desired performance. This new way of developing products is called simulation based design and allows organizations to reduce drastically the product lead time and bring innovation to the market. This work presents a computational way to analyze the dynamic behavior of a top load washing machine using multibody system (MBS). It\'s proposed a virtual prototype developed in the ADAMS software, for dynamic study of a commercial washing machine during spin cycle. The virtual model is compared to experimental data for validation. An extensive research in the literature has been done in order to find the most usual ways of modeling and analyzing washing machine dynamics during spin.

Recentemente, uma mudança de paradigma vem impactando toda a engenharia e manufatura na forma de se planejar, projetar, testar e construir produtos. A forma mais tradicional de desenvolvimento, que se caracterizava pelo processo seriado de múltiplos ciclos de design-construção-teste, vem sendo substituída gradativamente por processos de desenvolvimento guiados por simulação computacional. Decorrentes disso, os primeiros protótipos físicos são freqüentemente capazes de atingir os objetivos quando testados. Esta mudança, chamada também de projeto baseado em simulação, permite reduzir drasticamente o tempo de desenvolvimento de produtos e trazer a inovação para o mercado. Este trabalho apresenta uma forma computacional, via técnica de multicorpos, para se analisar a dinâmica de uma lavadora de eixo vertical. É proposto um protótipo virtual no software ADAMS, para estudo dinâmico de uma lavadora durante o processo crítico de centrifugação. O modelo virtual é posteriormente confrontado com dados experimentais, para sua validação. Uma extensa pesquisa bibliográfica foi realizada, com a intenção de capturar as técnicas mais usuais de modelamento e estudo dinâmico em lavadoras, bem como de compreender melhor o papel de seus componentes durante o processo crítico de centrifugação. / Recently a paradigm shift has impacted the engineering and manufacturing in the way of planning, designing, testing and building products. The most traditional way of product development, characterized by multiple cycles of design-build-test, has been substituted by a process based on computational simulation, where the first physical prototypes are capable of delivering the desired performance. This new way of developing products is called simulation based design and allows organizations to reduce drastically the product lead time and bring innovation to the market. This work presents a computational way to analyze the dynamic behavior of a top load washing machine using multibody system (MBS). It\'s proposed a virtual prototype developed in the ADAMS software, for dynamic study of a commercial washing machine during spin cycle. The virtual model is compared to experimental data for validation. An extensive research in the literature has been done in order to find the most usual ways of modeling and analyzing washing machine dynamics during spin.