A smart squirrel cage with piezoelectric coating and its application in condition monitoring of rotor system
Peng Wang, Lichang Qin, Jigang Feng, Yunfei Liu, Qi Li, Zhaoye Qin, Fulei Chu · Smart Materials and Structures · 2025
Abstract To carry out condition monitoring of rotor system, this paper proposes a novel detachable squirrel cage incorporating piezoelectric coating, and explains its working principle. Subsequently, the fabrication process of the piezoelectric coating is described in detail, and its surface morphology is analyzed by electron microscopy. Then, the electromechanical coupling model of piezoelectric cage bars is established, and the piezoelectric properties of the cage bars are analyzed in combination with experiments. After that, the open circuit voltage output of three piezoelectric cage bars is studied experimentally. The open circuit voltage, short circuit current and transfer charge of the squirrel cage at different rotational speeds are given. The energy output of the system under different unbalanced mass conditions and external resistance configurations is further examined experimentally. Finally, the smart squirrel cage is applied to the rotor system, and the fault diagnosis, fault classification and diagnostic accuracy analysis are carried out for the inner and outer ring faults.The results show that the proposed smart squirrel cage can realize the fault diagnosis of the rotor bearing while ensuring the structural strength, providing a new option for the online status monitoring of the rotor system.