Patent ID: 7653512
Filing Date: 2010-01-26
Classification: G05B

Abstract:
1. A precision diagnostic method for the failure protection and predictive maintenance of a vacuum pump, comprising the steps of: 1) collecting various pump operation-related state variables of a newly installed vacuum pump with a predetermined sampling rate for the idle and different gas-loaded conditions; 2) determining the maximum and minimum values of the time series of said state variables from each set of consecutively sampled signals over the user selected period which should be longer than the dominant period of fluctuating state variable signal components for the idle and different gas-loaded conditions; 3) estimating the pump operation characteristic values using parametric model-based active diagnostic algorithms for the idle and different gas-loaded conditions; 4) evaluating the pump performance indicators of said newly installed vacuum pump using an in-situ evaluation method; 5) storing the estimated pump operation characteristic values and the evaluated pump performance indicators of said newly installed vacuum pump in the vacuum pump maintenance database; 6) repeating the steps from 1) to 5) whenever the said newly installed vacuum pump is monitored to be under an abnormal operating condition; and 7) comparing the values of the estimated pump operation characteristic values and the evaluated pump performance indicators of said newly installed vacuum pump stored in the vacuum pump maintenance database with the estimated pump operation characteristic values and the evaluated pump performance indicators of said newly installed vacuum pump under an abnormal operation condition in order to determine pump replacement.