Fault diagnosis of reciprocating compressor valve with the method integrating acoustic emission signal and simulated valve motion

This paper proposes a method of diagnosing faults in reciprocating compressor valves using the acoustic emission signal coupled with the simulated valve motion. The actual working condition of a valve can be obtained by analyzing the acoustic emission signal in the crank angle domain and the valve movement can be predicted by simulating the valve motion. The exact opening and closing locations of a normal valve, provided by the simulated valve motion, can be used as references for the valve fault diagnosis. The typical valve faults are diagnosed to validate the feasibility and accuracy of the proposed method. The experimental results indicate that this method can easily distinguish the normal valve, valve flutter and valve delayed closing conditions. The characteristic locations of the opening and closing of the suction and discharge valves can be clearly identified in the waveform of the acoustic emission signal and the simulated valve motion. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.