Patent Description:
For many industrial applications, electric motors are key components which are expected to be very reliable. Because it is well known that every motor breaks down sooner or later, there is a long-standing development in industry to move from reactive maintenance of critical equipment towards preventive or proactive maintenance. These more recent options may lead to the replacing of old though fully functional components, which is not always defendable from a financial or sustainability point of view. It would be even better, indeed, to detect non-ideal operation conditions early - before they manifest themselves as faults that hamper productive operation - and use them as triggers to take suitable maintenance actions.

The moving rotor is a primary source of forces and vibrations in the electric motor. The shaft transmits these forces to the bearings, which act as flexible fulcrums during operation. Since the (radial) displacement of the shaft in relation with the bearing housing depends on the force acting on the shaft and the stiffness of the bearing, the shaft displacement sensor could theoretically be an ideal type of measurement for condition monitoring. Indeed, the contributions to the radial deformation include several potential threats to the good onward functioning of the motor:.

In addition to this list, the displacement of the shaft related to the bearing housing also depends on the force acting on the shaft and the bearing stiffness.

The contributions to the radial deformation may be categorized with respect to synchronicity. More precisely, while some components, such as shaft out-of-roundness or drive tilt, will repeat at certain angular locations of the rotation (synchronous error motions), other deformation components, such as bearing frequencies generated by out-of-roundness of rolling elements in the bearing, are cyclical but do not repeat at the same angular locations (asynchronous error motions).

Workable techniques for measuring the radial displacement of the shaft have hitherto been missing, however.

<CIT> discloses a method according to the preamble of claim <NUM>. The method includes one or more reference runs, during which a basic distance to a moving rotor at low angular speed is captured using contactless sensors, followed by a deformation measurement at significantly higher speed. By means of a contactless zero-marker sensor, the distance measurements can be performed as a function of the angle, and averaging is performed over consecutive revolutions. The angle-dependent deformation is computed, for each angle value, as the difference of the captured (revolution-averaged) distances. A corresponding measurement setup is disclosed.

<CIT> discloses a method for measuring a deformed diameter of a rotating computer tomography rotor using laser scanning. An average distance L2 to the rotor is measured at high speed, at which the deformation of interest is expected to occur, an average distance L1 is measured at low speed, and the difference ΔL = L2 - L1 is used in the further calculations.

<CIT> discloses a metallurgic process which includes a step of rotating a metal part at high angular speed in order to deform the part plastically for thereby relieving residual stresses in the part. To be able to apply the desired amount of plastic deformation, the radial enlargement of the part is measured both in an unloaded condition and at angular speeds in the expected range, and the measurement data is fitted to a simple model. The radial enlargement is measured by laser, a capacitive sensor or an eddy current inductive sensor.

<CIT> discloses a device for measuring a deflection of a rotating body.

<CIT> discloses a method for online calibration of a sensor, which is designed to measure a distance to a test surface.

One objective of the present disclosure is to make available a method for estimating a radial deformation of a rotary shaft in a loaded condition. A further objective is to estimate the radial deformation while the rotary shaft is loaded by dynamic forces, especially dynamic forces generated by an ongoing movement. A further objective is to make available a method that is robust to local irregularities on the surface of the shaft and/or fluctuations in angular speed. A further objective is to make available a method capable of excellent dimensional accuracy with respect to the radial direction. A further objective is to organize the computations within such a method in an efficient and accurate way. A still further objective is to propose a processor configured to estimate a radial deformation of a rotary shaft in a loaded condition with these advantages.

At least some of these objectives are achieved by the invention as defined by the independent claims. The dependent claims relate to advantageous embodiments.

In a first aspect of the present disclosure, according to claim <NUM>, there is provided a method of estimating a radial deformation of a rotary shaft in a loaded condition.

The inventor has realized, and experimentally demonstrated, that faults appearing in the low-frequency part of the vibration spectrum, such as unbalances, misalignment, can be detected and assessed using displacement sensors more reliably and accurately than by accelerometers. Furthermore, the inventor has observed a very good correlation (r<NUM> = <NUM>) between the radial load on the bearing and the shaft displacement, which enables load estimation. Any errors resulting from static forces or unevenness of the shaft surface will cancel out thanks to the differential measuring technique. These insights form the basis of a novel way of using displacement sensors to detect major potential problems in the motor, as well as early non-ideal operation conditions.

In some embodiments, the method includes a step of identifying local irregularities in the recorded radial displacement and replacing these with interpolated data or a template shape before computing the radial deformation. Alternatively, the recorded radial displacement can be processed by a regularization operation. Such substitution or regularization can be a way to remove sharp spikes, which could otherwise cause significant errors in the runout compensation in setups where synchronization is not perfect.

In some embodiments, the first or second shape description includes a harmonic-analysis representation. Such representations have been found to be well suited for describing the shape of the deformed shaft, notably if the shaft has a nominally circular shape, and the representations cover a large class of shaft geometries.

In a second aspect of the present disclosure, according to claim <NUM>, there is provided a processor configured to estimate a radial deformation of a rotary shaft in a loaded condition.

Generally speaking, the processor according to the second aspect is associated with the same advantages and effects as the method of the first aspect, and it can be implemented with a corresponding degree of technical variation.

The disclosure further relates to a computer program containing instructions for causing a computer, or the processor of the second aspect in particular, to carry out the above method. The computer program may be stored or distributed on a data carrier. As used herein, a "data carrier" may be a transitory data carrier, such as modulated electromagnetic or optical waves, or a non-transitory data carrier. Non-transitory data carriers include volatile and non-volatile memories, such as permanent and non-permanent storage media of magnetic, optical or solid-state type. Still within the scope of "data carrier", such memories may be fixedly mounted or portable.

The steps of any method disclosed herein do not have to be performed in the exact order described, unless this is explicitly stated.

The aspects of the present disclosure will now be described more fully hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings, on which certain embodiments of the invention are shown. These aspects may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limiting; rather, these embodiments are provided by way of example so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and to fully convey the scope of all aspects of the invention to those skilled in the art.

<FIG> shows a motor <NUM> arranged to rotate a rotary shaft <NUM>, a displacement instrument <NUM> arranged to record a radial displacement of the shaft <NUM>, and an associated controller <NUM>. For the purposes of this description, it is assumed that the shaft <NUM> has a nominally circular cross section and has a nominally rectilinear axis. The shaft <NUM> is secured to the motor <NUM> by means of a fixture <NUM>, such as a releasable chuck. The rotation axis of the motor <NUM> nominally coincides with the axis of the shaft <NUM>, these axes drawn by a common dashed line in <FIG>, although mounting errors may be present.

The motor <NUM> shall be operable to rotate the shaft <NUM> at variable angular speed. In some envisaged use cases, the motor <NUM> can be a component in a dedicated measuring arrangement, in which case the sought-for radial deformation is limited to causes related to the shaft <NUM> itself, such as the presence of bends or material non-homogeneities in the shaft <NUM>. The estimation of said radial deformation could be perturbed to some extent by imperfections in the motor <NUM>, but the aim is normally to eliminate the influence of these perturbations. After the completion of the radial deformation estimation, an operator may take the shaft <NUM> out of the measuring arrangement and install it in production equipment for use in productive operation.

Alternatively, in other use cases, the motor <NUM> can be an electric motor which belongs to the actual production equipment. The estimated radial deformation of the shaft <NUM> will inherently include such deformations that are caused by defects in the motor <NUM> itself (e.g., damaged bearings) and/or the securing of the shaft <NUM> to the motor <NUM> (e.g., it is eccentric or non-parallel to the rotation axis), which realistically predicts the behavior of the production equipment during operation and could indicate the necessary maintenance actions.

The displacement instrument <NUM> may be composed of a sensor <NUM> and an optional display <NUM>. The sensor <NUM> may in turn include one or multiple sub-sensors. Suitable signal processing may be applied for combining primary signals from a plurality of sub-sensors into a joint sensor reading of the displacement. To implement the teachings herein, the use of a contactless sensor <NUM> is the preferred choice, especially a capacitive sensor. The use of a mechanical sensor, such as a gauge head in contact with the surface of the rotating shaft <NUM>, is not excluded either, particularly if the shaft <NUM> is to be used at relatively low rpm and has a smooth surface.

From a functional point of view, the displacement sensor <NUM> may be one satisfying the requirements for shaft runout measurements set forth in the specification ASME/ANSI B5. <NUM>-<NUM>, "Methods for Performance Evaluation of Computer Numerically Controlled Machining Centers", although this is not an essential feature of the invention. The ASME/ANSI specification defines runout as the total indicator reading (e.g., for one complete revolution) of an instrument measuring against a moving surface. Notwithstanding this definition, in the present disclosure, the term runout may occasionally be used in the broader sense of any positioning error of the shaft relative to the rotation axis, including eccentricity (radial runout), non-parallel orientation (axial runout) and the like.

Finally, the controller <NUM> in <FIG> is connected, over a data interface <NUM>, to the displacement instrument <NUM>, from which it receives a sensor signal. The sensor signal may represent the momentary distance between a reference point (e.g., the tip of a capacitive sensor head) and the nearest point on the surface of the shaft <NUM>. Over the data interface <NUM>, the controller <NUM> may further be connected to the motor <NUM>. On the one hand, the controller <NUM> may be authorized to control the motor <NUM> (e.g., regarding its angular speed or torque), as suggested by the arrow in <FIG>. On the other hand, the controller <NUM> may be arranged to receive a signal representing an angular position or angular speed of the motor <NUM>; this signal may be supplied as feedback of the action of a control signal supplied to the motor <NUM>. Each of these connections between the controller <NUM> and motor <NUM> are optional, namely, in such implementations where the shaft displacement estimation is performed while the motor <NUM> rotates the shaft at a pre-agreed angular speed. For example, the motor <NUM> may be arranged to execute a program including rotation of the shaft <NUM> at the first and the second angular speed in time intervals known to the controller <NUM>; this way, the controller <NUM> is not required to be authorized to control the motor <NUM> directly.

The controller <NUM> further comprises a processor <NUM> and a memory <NUM>. The processor <NUM> may include a networked ('cloud') processing resources or may be supported by a networked processing resource. The memory may be used for storing a computer program <NUM> to be executed by the processor <NUM> and further for storing shape descriptions of shafts, template shapes, calibration data, and so forth.

With reference to <FIG>, there will now be described a method <NUM> for estimating a radial deformation of the rotary shaft <NUM> in a loaded condition, with variations according to embodiments herein. The method <NUM> can be executed by any suitably situated processor, one that is arranged to receive a signal representing a radial displacement of the shaft <NUM> as a function of angle and/or time, wherein this displacement is to be captured while the shaft <NUM> is rotated at one first (lower) angular speed and one second (higher) angular speed. These requirements are met by the processor <NUM> in <FIG>.

The second angular speed is a specified angular speed that corresponds to the loaded condition in which it is desired to estimate the radial deformation of the shaft <NUM>. In the loaded condition, the shaft <NUM> is acted upon by dynamic forces and torque, such as centripetal forces, with or without precession, or periodic forces due to an imperfect rotational asymmetry. The first angular speed can be a "low" angular speed that corresponds to a relaxed condition of the shaft <NUM>, e.g., a mechanical state such that the dynamic forces and torques acting on the shaft <NUM> are low enough that their contribution to the total deformation of the shaft <NUM> can be neglected in the use case at hand. Put differently, the shaft <NUM> while rotated at the first angular speed shall have approximately the same shape as if the shaft <NUM> was at rest in the inertial frame used.

In a first step <NUM> of the method, a first radial displacement of the shaft's <NUM> surface is recorded while rotating the shaft at a first angular speed corresponding to a relaxed condition of the shaft. If the radial displacement is measured by the deformation instrument <NUM> in <FIG>, the signal may correspond to samples of the distance between the head of a capacitive sensor <NUM> and the shaft's <NUM> surface. The recording may be performed by storing the signal temporarily in the memory <NUM>.

The recorded first radial displacement may be used in the subsequent steps of the present method <NUM> without any further processing. In some embodiments, however, the recorded first radial displacement is preprocessed for a dimensional calibration and to ensure a linear sensor response of the deformation instrument <NUM>. More precisely, in an optional step <NUM>, a local irregularity in the recorded first radial displacement is tracked, and the local irregularity is identified with a structure that has a known radial dimension. The local irregularity may for example be a repeating waveform occupying a portion of an angular period, such as the waveforms A and S in <FIG>. The local irregularity may be positioned in the recorded first radial displacement signal with very high accuracy by locally approximating the recorded first radial displacement signal by a quadratic polynomial and finding its minimum or maximum, as applicable. The structure with the known radial dimension may be a metallic strip with a known thickness that an operator has attached to the shaft <NUM> for the purpose of the calibration. Alternatively, it may be an artificial or accidental depression (e.g., a machined notch or groove) of known depth. The calibration sub-process, when based on a depression, is illustrated in <FIG>, where the horizontal axis represents recording time (unit: <NUM> second, which is equivalent to an angle at constant angular speed), and the vertical axis represents a radial displacement signal to be calibrated. A local minimum may be identified M by a local quadratic polynomial approximation, as mentioned. At the local minimum M, the signal's drop from the steady-state value (E ≈ <NUM> - (-<NUM>) = <NUM> units) corresponds to the known depth of the notch. On this basis, in a step <NUM>, the recorded first radial displacement is scaled to match said known depth dimension. Uniform scaling may be used, and the scaling coefficient may correspond to the ratio of the known radial dimension and the size in signal units of the signal drop.

The radial calibration sub-process constituted by steps <NUM> and <NUM> could equivalently be performed on the basis of the second radial displacement. The calibration sub-process need not be carried out in a phase separate from productive operation, but can be carried out during production (online). If multiple irregularities are tracked, non-linear calibration can be performed.

The data recorded in step <NUM> could alternatively be used for an angular calibration. For this purpose, a reappearing local irregularity is tracked in the recorded first radial displacement data, and the first radial displacement data is scaled in step <NUM> with respect to the recording-time (or angle) dimension. The scaling of the first radial displacement data is such that the tracked local irregularity reappears with an equal separation in recording time or angle; this is likely to even out any angular speed variations during the recording (step <NUM>). As a by-product, a coarse estimate of the angular velocity can be obtained. The scaling may be described as a dilation or a stretching. In mathematical language, the scaling may correspond to replacing f(t) with f(α · t) in all or part of the recorded data, where the scaling factor α may be less than <NUM> or greater than <NUM>, or more generally to replacing f(t) with f(α(t) · t), where α(t) is a function of the recording time which is locally less than <NUM> or greater than <NUM>. The scaling may be non-uniform in the sense that a different scaling factor applies in different periods of the first radial displacement data. To achieve good angular calibration accuracy, it may be advisable to use radial displacement data recorded for at least three revolutions of the shaft <NUM>.

Because the variations in angular speed may be different for the first and second radial displacement data, the angular calibration sub-process constituted by the steps <NUM> and <NUM> is preferably performed once for each data set.

Returning to the main embodiment of the method <NUM>, the execution flow continues to a step <NUM> of providing, on the basis of the first radial displacement, a first shape description representing the shaft's cross section in the relaxed condition. The shape description may be quite simple, such as the recorded radial displacement values in calibrated length units and possibly with annotations indicating the start of each new revolution.

To provide the first shape description, a harmonic-analysis representation can be relied upon, including Fourier series, sine series, cosine series, DFT (discrete Fourier transform) coefficients or FFT (fast Fourier transform) coefficients. A Fourier-series description is well suited for modeling cyclic phenomena. It can be used also to model random cross sections of shafts <NUM>, subject to the very mild condition that the shaft <NUM> shall have a star-shaped contour. To illustrate, <FIG> shows a two-dimensional geometric point set which is star-shaped relative to the origin O, whereas <FIG> shows a point set which is not star-shaped relative to the origin O. The star-shaped point set can be described in terms of its radius vector r(φ), which can be defined as the radius as a function of angle. The radius vector is clearly a periodic function.

It can be stated that all phenomena of a rotating machine are related in one way or another to the angular speed. In the frequency domain, synchronous frequency components repeat at certain angular locations of the rotation and asynchronous do not. However, at approximately constant angular speed, both types of the frequency components can be modelled by Fourier series, i.e., combinations of sine and cosine functions where all the frequencies in the model are determined by one fundamental frequency ω<NUM> and its harmonics ωm = ω<NUM>m for m = <NUM>, <NUM>,. In the case of synchronous frequency components, ω<NUM> is the angular speed at which the shaft <NUM> rotates. A mathematical description of the radial displacement signal as a Fourier series can be written as <MAT> where n is the discrete time index, M is the number of harmonics included in the model, ωm = <NUM>πvm, Am is an mth Fourier coefficient (cosine coefficient), the number vm = fm/fs is the digital frequency, and ε[n] is a noise term. Frequencies fm, fs are the analog signal and sampling frequency, respectively. In the case of asynchronous frequency components, the basic frequency is, for example, one of the bearing fault frequencies. Parameters of the model can be estimated very accurately using Maximum Likelihood estimation (see <NPL>).

A mathematical model can be used to correct errors due to the shaft having an uneven shape. Possible model candidates are described in <NPL>. These models include:.

A suitable model for the present application is the radius-vector function. Indeed, since the contour of the shaft <NUM> is not necessarily symmetric, the reference point in the support function model is, by definition, outside of the figure, and the tangent angle function assumes a piecewise smooth surface. To describe the contour of shaft by radius-vector function, a point in the interior of the cross section is chosen. The point may be, for example, the center of the gravity, the center of the smallest circular disc that completely contains the figure, or the intersection of the cross section and the axis of rotation. Then the cross section is translated such that the chosen point lies at the origin O. In a star-shaped cross section, as already seen in <FIG>, each ray starting at O forms only one line segment, whereas in non-star-shaped cross section (<FIG>) there are rays starting at O that cross the boundary more than once.

A useful statistical tool for describing the radius vector of the cross section as a random variable may be the Gaussian random cylinder methodology proposed by Muinonen and Saarinen. The methodology is described in <NPL>. Another use of this methodology is reported on in <NPL>. In the Gaussian random cylinder methodology, the simulated or measured radius vectors are presented using the following Fourier-series model: <MAT> where ξ = ξ(φ) represents the modeling error. The coefficient a<NUM> is equal to the mean radius of the contour. An example of measurement error due to random shape of the shaft <NUM> is presented in <FIG> and <FIG>. The example was generated by a simulation that was based on the following assumptions: perfect displacement sensor <NUM>, <NUM> mean radius and <NUM> standard deviation for the radius. The resulting maximum error in displacement measurement was close to <NUM>.

In some embodiments of the method <NUM>, this step <NUM> further comprises substeps by which local irregularities are removed before the shape description is provided. Such irregularities could otherwise lead to significant errors in a later runout compensation if the synchronization between the measured signal and a runout compensation model is poor. Indeed, poor synchronization may lead to subtraction of values for non-corresponding angles φ, which produces very noticeable artefacts for a signal with fast variation. In a first substep <NUM>, at least one local irregularity is identified in the recorded first radial displacement and, in a second substep <NUM>, the local irregularity is replaced with interpolated data, or is replaced with a template shape, or a combination of these replacements is performed. The removal of local irregularities is illustrated in <FIG>, where the data points (samples) representing the recorded first radial displacement are plotted as connected small dots as a function of recording time in seconds. The negative spike, which appears to interrupt the approximately sinusoidal fundamental waveform, constitutes the irregularity to be removed, and the dashed line represents the radial displacement after the replacement in the second substep <NUM>. In the second substep <NUM>, an interpolation may include fitting to the surrounding waveform a polynomial of degree <NUM>, <NUM> or higher and evaluating it across the irregularity. Alternatively, if substitution of a template shape is used, the shape as seen in the cross-section plane may for example be a circular arc.

In still further embodiments of the method <NUM>, step <NUM> may further comprise regularizing the recorded first radial displacement. This regularization (or smoothing) may be achieved by numerically convolving the first radial displacement with a kernel that has a non-pointwise support on the real line; especially, a convolution with a smooth kernel can be used. A regularization may also be achieved by piecewise approximating the first radial displacement by low-order polynomials or splines. A regularization according to one of these options may be expected to eliminate undesirable measurement noise. The regularized first radial displacement data will then take the place of the recorded first radial displacement data in the remainder of the method <NUM>.

In a next step <NUM> of the method <NUM>, a second radial displacement of the shaft's surface is recorded while rotating the shaft <NUM> at the second angular speed. As explained above, the second angular speed corresponds to the loaded condition of the shaft <NUM>. The recording may be performed by storing the signal temporarily in the memory <NUM>.

After this, in a step <NUM>, a second shape description representing the shaft's cross section in the loaded condition is provided on the basis of the second radial displacement. The second shape description has a representation or format that is compatible with the representation or format that was used for the first shape description. The representation should allow a comparison with the first shape description and/or a reuse of calibration data prepared for the first shape description and/or a subtraction operation applied to the first and second shape descriptions.

Substeps <NUM>, <NUM> can be carried out on the recorded second radial displacement data in analogy with the above-described substeps <NUM>, <NUM>, just like radial calibration, angular calibration and any subsequent regularization.

With the first and second shape descriptions available, the execution flow of the method <NUM> then proceeds to a final step <NUM> of determining the radial deformation as a difference of the first and second shape descriptions. The difference may be computed, for example as a subtraction of the radius vectors, i.e., the radius values for corresponding angle values are subtracted. Pairs of corresponding angles in the two shape descriptions may be identified using annotations indicating the start of each new revolution, as mentioned above. One of the shape descriptions may in some instances require resampling (e.g., interpolation) to make it suitable for subtraction. The deformation d is obtained as <MAT> where r<NUM>, r<NUM> are the first and second shape descriptions, respectively. If for example step <NUM> has been carried out in accordance with the Fourier-series approach, it returns as output a shape description on the form corresponding to equation (<NUM>), using measured values in shaft-angle coordinates φ and a maximum-likelihood estimation algorithm for the parameters. This approach can be used to generate a shape description in shaft angle coordinates for any desired rotational speed. The generated shaft shape signal is subtracted from the resampled measurement signals in shaft-angle coordinates resulting accurate shaft displacement signals.

As explained initially, the (radial) forces acting on the shaft <NUM> can be derived on the basis of the (radial) deformation.

The inventor has carried out experiments in a non-public laboratory at Lappeenranta University of Technology to study the developed shaft shape compensation method. A measurement setup corresponding to the schematic structure in <FIG> was used. To test the shaft shape compensation algorithm, about <NUM> layer of metal was smoothly excised from the outer surface of a shaft (coupling). To provide suitable angle references for the method <NUM>, about <NUM> thick metal strip were glued onto the shaft within the coverage of capacitive displacement sensors supplied by Micro-Epsilon Messtechnik, Ortenburg, Germany. The measurement setup included a DL6222 demodulator with integrated preamplifier, a DT6222 capacitive multichannel controller, and two CSE1,<NUM>/M12 capacitive displacements sensors. The optimum width of the metal strip is the width of the measuring field of the capacitive sensor, since (in first approximation) the measurement results when the measuring field goes over the metal strip is the convolution of the measuring field strength and rectangular cross-section of the metal strip. Accordingly, a <NUM> wide metal strip for the Micro-Epsilon sensor was attached to the surface of the shaft.

To introduce radial forces, a disc with an asymmetrically positioned mass m was attached to the free end of the shaft. The radius of the disc was several times larger than the radius of the shaft. Theoretically, the addition of a mass m at radial distance rm will produce a sinusoidally varying force with amplitude <MAT> where ω<NUM> the angular speed of rotation. By plotting the amplitude of the <NUM>st order displacement i.e., the amplitude of the <NUM>st rotation speed harmonic, versus the corresponding unbalance force the correlation between these two variables can be examined. In the test, masses of <NUM>, <NUM>, <NUM> and <NUM> grams were used to create unbalances, and different angular speeds were used, as reported in Table <NUM>.

<FIG> and <FIG> show examples of measured displacement signals in an x-direction (approximate horizontal) and a y-direction (approximate vertical), respectively. In the experiment, two displacement sensors spaced <NUM> degrees apart along the perimeter of the disc were used to capture these displacement signals. In <FIG>, S is used to indicate the location of a metal strip (which locally reduces the distance from the sensor to the disc surface) and A is used to indicate an artificial runout (area where metal has been ground of the disc surface). The horizontal axes represent shaft angle in radians, and as expected the waveforms A, S reappear every revolution. It is remarked that in other setups, one may use displacement sensors that are directed at the shaft surface rather than at a disc attached to the shaft.

<FIG> (sensed x-direction) and <NUM> (sensed y-direction) are plots of the displacement versus the unbalance force according to equation (<NUM>), against the horizontal and vertical axes respectively. Recorded data is indicated with a × symbol, data from the runout compensation model is plotted in solid line together with an associated <NUM>% prediction interval according to said mode. The correlation is excellent, with a determination coefficient of r<NUM> = <NUM> for both the x- and y-directions.

Claim 1:
A method (<NUM>) of estimating a radial deformation of a rotary shaft (<NUM>) in a loaded condition, comprising:
recording (<NUM>) a first radial displacement of the shaft's surface while rotating the shaft at a first angular speed corresponding to a relaxed condition of the shaft;
on the basis of the first radial displacement, providing (<NUM>) a first shape description representing the shaft's cross section in the relaxed condition;
recording (<NUM>) a second radial displacement of the shaft's surface while rotating the shaft at a second angular speed corresponding to said loaded condition of the shaft;
tracking a reappearing local irregularity in the recorded first or second radial displacement;
on the basis of the second radial displacement, providing (<NUM>) a second shape description representing the shaft's cross section in the loaded condition; and
determining (<NUM>) the radial deformation as a difference of the first and second shape descriptions,
characterized in that the method further comprises:
(a) identifying the local irregularity with a structure that has a known radial dimension and scaling (<NUM>) the recorded first or second radial displacement to match said known radial dimension; or
(b) scaling (<NUM>) the recorded first or second radial displacement non-uniformly with respect to the recording-time dimension or angle dimension, such that the tracked local irregularity reappears with an equal separation in recording time or angle, to compensate any variations in angular speed between the revolutions.