Experimental Fault Diagnosis in Systems Containing Finite Elements of Plate of Kirchoff by Using State Observers Methodology

Abstract

This paper presents a methodology for detection and localization of faults by using state observers. State Observers can rebuild the states not measured or values from points of difficult access in the system. So faults can be detected in these points without the knowledge of its measures, and can be track by the reconstructions of their states. In this paper this methodology will be applied in a system which represents a simplified model of a vehicle. In this model the chassis of the car was represented by a flat plate, which was divided in finite elements of plate (plate of Kirchoff), in addition, was considered the car suspension (springs and dampers). A test rig was built and the developed methodology was used to detect and locate faults on this system. In analyses done, the idea is to use a system with a specific fault, and then use the state observers to locate it, checking on a quantitative variation of the parameter of the system which caused this crash. For the computational simulations the software MATLAB was used.