The wireless measuring instrument for hydroturbine axial alignment based on extreme value fast optimization

Area of Science:

• Mechanical Engineering
• Instrumentation and Measurement
• Optimization Algorithms

Background:

• Manual hydroturbine shaft alignment is prone to inaccuracies and inefficiencies.
• Traditional methods rely on discrete measurements and manual coordination, limiting precision.
• There is a need for automated, high-accuracy alignment solutions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design a wireless measuring instrument for precise axial alignment of hydroturbine shafts.
• To develop an enhanced extremum optimization algorithm for rapid and accurate alignment.
• To improve the efficiency and accuracy of hydroturbine shaft alignment processes.

Main Methods:

• A wireless sensing system using grating displacement sensors and angular encoders with LoRa transmission for 360° data acquisition.
• An enhanced simulated annealing (SA) algorithm featuring adaptive step-size, multi-stage annealing with restarts, and flexible temperature decay.
• Sinusoidal function fitting for deflection curve analysis combined with the optimized algorithm for direct extremum identification.

Main Results:

• The wireless instrument achieved 99.8% consistency with the traditional eight-point method.
• Alignment efficiency was improved by 400% compared to conventional techniques.
• Extremum identification accuracy reached 0.001 mm, demonstrating high precision.

Conclusions:

• The developed wireless measuring instrument provides a novel and highly effective solution for intelligent hydroturbine shaft alignment.
• The enhanced SA algorithm significantly improves extremum identification speed and accuracy.
• The proposed method overcomes limitations of traditional alignment techniques, offering a paradigm shift in the field.