Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics ITWM
Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics ITWM

Contactless Torque Monitoring

The first of our numerous work on the state estimation of rotating drives began with a project for the development of a state observer for power plant turbines. These turbo generators consist of a long shaft on which the generator is mounted for power generation and usually several turbines for driving the shaft.

In particular, the torsional vibrations of a turboset triggered by grid malfunctions or operating errors lead to fatigue of shaft components and can even trigger severe mechanical damage. The latter can, in some cases, induce additional permanent torsional vibrations in the rotational frequency and their harmonics.

Therefore, it is necessary to ensure continuous monitoring of a drive train for torsional vibrations.

Continuous monitoring on torsional vibrations

We have been working on the development of methods for on-line monitoring of torsional vibrations for many years and have developed methods for the model-based prediction of torsional vibrations and methods for the run-out compensation of inductive magnetostrictive sensors.

The tasks involved in the torsion monitoring of drive trains are numerous. Our processes and products developed for this purpose include systems for:

  • Experimental torsional analysis with which, e.g. torsional natural frequencies from turbine generator shaft lines can be determined (TorStor)
  • Measurement data-based detection and evaluation of critical torsional vibrations, e.g. subsynchronous oscillations (TorFat)
  • Analysis of dependencies between torque and the electrical power at the transformator and generator (TorGrid)
  • Targeted monitoring of at-risk locations in a turbine set, e.g. The shaft couplings, through the use of model-based state estimators (TorAn)
  • Detection and classification of shaft damage

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