Engine Manufacturing Fault Detection
NVH as a witness of manufacturing faults
Integrated with 'cold' engine test machines, the NUREN sub-product for the core PLATO platform uses noise and/or vibration signatures to evidence engine build defects.
Work-cycle locking
By analysing data locked to engine work-cycles (e.g. 720-degrees crankshaft rotation for 4-stroke engines) the system generates joint time-frequency maps where amplitude and position in the map provide the necessary clues for fault detection.
Faults readily exposed
Intelligent (and automatic) generation of reference level maps, followed by map comparisons to expose images of abnormalities, readily exposes faults.
The example here (from a 4-cylinder, 4-stroke gasoline IC engine) graphically shows how a balancer shaft installed 180-degress out of synchronisation causes an abnormal response in a sensor measuring cylinder head vibration.
Many other examples are available on request.
Automatic fault classification
Many NUREN systems choose to add the FOCUS sub-product to objectively pattern-match fault maps generated by NUREN.
Time (revolution) analysis completes the picture
Experience has taught us that some engine manufacturing faults require an alternative to the 1/3-octave based joint time-frequency technique used by NUREN.
Systems can therefore be configured to use the REVKIT sub-product to provide extremely high-definition revolution history averaging to detect a different class of abnormality.
The example here (from a 4-cylinder, 4-stroke gasoline IC engine) graphically shows the effect of a camshaft drive gear being displaced by a single tooth. Many other examples are available on request.
Easily integrate to test machines
Simple OPC-communications between PLATO and test machines makes integration a breeze and, as standard, counter/timer DAQ-cards from National Instruments™ make for an extremely cost-effective engine test solution.
Clear, precise results
Test results are reported using PLATO’s intuitive test report, passed to the machine controller (PLC) via OPC and stored within PLATO’s results database (SQL) and optionally passed to PLATO-SERVER.