Investigation of Traction Motor Failure Modes and Monitoring Methods

Currently traction motors are typically maintained on a Time-Based Schedule. The move to a more cost-effective Condition-Based monitoring system faces multiple challenges - primary among them being the complexity of wiring and instrumenting sensors in the ruggedized rail environment and the difficulty of extracting intelligible information from the data collected in a noisy environment. Forcing Function has harnessed multiple new developments in the world of electronics, wireless communications, sensors and signal processing to provide a scalable and easily deployable solution for monitoring traction motors. Though motor failures can be identified by monitoring multiple parameters like temperature, voltage, current or oil-levels, prior research by Forcing Function has identified bearing vibrations as the most useful parameter for identifying faults in a reliable and timely manner. Based on these findings, Forcing Function’s solution incorporates a self-powered solid-state vibration sensor that uses low power wireless technology to transmit data to a hub on the rail car. This data is uploaded to a server in the cloud using a cellular connection. Forcing Function will apply advanced signal processing techniques to extract useful bearing vibration signatures which can then be used to characterize and quantify the nature and severity of problems with the traction motor.