CN108627711B

CN108627711B - Fault detection system and method for refrigeration system and refrigeration system

Info

Publication number: CN108627711B
Application number: CN201710156146.9A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 陈林辉; 谢康山
Original assignee: Carrier Corp
Current assignee: Carrier Corp
Priority date: 2017-03-16
Filing date: 2017-03-16
Publication date: 2023-06-30
Anticipated expiration: 2037-03-16
Also published as: CN108627711A; EP3596411A1; EP3596411B1; WO2018169849A1

Abstract

The invention provides a fault detection system and method for a refrigeration system and the refrigeration system, wherein the fault detection method comprises the following steps: acquiring the power supply output current or output power, calculating a power supply theoretical output current or output power, and comparing the power supply output current or output power with the power supply theoretical output current or output power to judge whether the system is abnormal or not; and when the system is abnormal, changing the working state of at least one device, and comparing the power supply output current or output power before and after the working state of the at least one device is changed to judge whether the at least one device is abnormal or not. The system and the method according to the embodiment of the invention can timely and accurately detect the faults of high-power equipment in the refrigeration system.

Description

Fault detection system and method for refrigeration system and refrigeration system

Technical Field

The present invention relates to the field of refrigeration systems, and more particularly, to a fault detection system and method for a refrigeration system, and a refrigeration system, particularly a transport refrigeration system.

Background

In existing refrigeration systems, such as transport refrigeration system designs, high power equipment, such as a condensing fan motor or an evaporating fan motor, is directly connected to a power source. To avoid being subjected to large currents, the controller controls the individual high-power devices by means of a control unit, such as an external relay. The controller is not connected to the power supply circuit between the power supply and the high-power device, so that the working state of the high-power device cannot be monitored. When the fault occurs, a user cannot know the fault in time, so that the temperature of the cold box is lost to control or the unit runs in an abnormal working condition for a long time, and the reliability of the system is reduced.

Disclosure of Invention

The invention aims to provide a fault detection system and a fault detection method for a refrigeration system, which can timely and accurately detect faults of high-power equipment in the refrigeration system.

The invention also aims to provide a refrigeration system, in particular a transport refrigeration system, capable of timely and accurately detecting faults of high-power equipment.

It is also an object of the present invention to solve or at least alleviate the problems of the prior art.

To achieve the above object, according to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a fault detection method for a refrigeration system, the method comprising:

acquiring the power supply output current or output power, calculating a power supply theoretical output current or output power, and comparing the power supply output current or output power with the power supply theoretical output current or output power to judge whether the system is abnormal or not; and

when the system is abnormal, the working state of at least one device is changed, and the power supply output current or output power before and after the working state of the at least one device is changed is compared to judge whether the at least one device is abnormal or not.

According to another aspect of the present invention, a fault detection system for a refrigeration system and a refrigeration system are provided, wherein a method according to an embodiment of the present invention is applied.

Drawings

The present disclosure will become more readily understood with reference to the accompanying drawings. As will be readily appreciated by those skilled in the art: the drawings are for illustrative purposes only and are not intended to limit the scope of the present invention. Moreover, like numerals in the figures are used to designate like parts, wherein:

FIG. 1 is a schematic circuit diagram of a refrigeration system with a fault detection system according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 2 shows a basic flow of a fault detection method for a refrigeration system according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 3 shows a preliminary inspection flow of a fault detection method for a refrigeration system according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 4 illustrates a portion of a fine inspection flow for a fault detection method for a refrigeration system according to an embodiment of the present invention; and

fig. 5 illustrates another part of a fine inspection flow of a fault detection method for a refrigeration system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Detailed Description

It is to be understood that, according to the technical solution of the present invention, those skilled in the art may propose various alternative structural modes and implementation modes without changing the true spirit of the present invention. Accordingly, the following detailed description and drawings are merely illustrative of the invention and are not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise form disclosed.

Terms of orientation such as up, down, left, right, front, rear, front, back, top, bottom, etc. mentioned or possible to be mentioned in the present specification are defined with respect to the configurations shown in the drawings, which are relative concepts, and thus may be changed according to different positions and different use states thereof. These and other directional terms should not be construed as limiting terms.

Referring to fig. 1, a schematic circuit diagram of a refrigeration system with a fault detection system according to an embodiment of the present invention is shown. The refrigeration system according to the embodiment of the invention basically comprises a power supply 1, a controller 2, a battery 3, a component 4, and a plurality of devices connected in parallel, including a first device 5, a second device 6, a third device 7 and a fourth device 8. These

devices

5,6,7,8 may be high-power devices, such as condensing fan motors or evaporating fan motors. In some embodiments, the power source 1 may be a direct current or alternating current generator of a transport vehicle connected to power a refrigeration system, and in electric vehicles or other embodiments, the power source 1 may be a power battery and a variable voltage device thereof for powering the refrigeration system. In this embodiment, the first device 5 and the second device 6 are condensing fan motors, and the third device 7 and the fourth device 8 are evaporating fan motors. Because of the large current present on the branches of the respective devices, the fuse protection devices, including the first fuse protection device 52, the second fuse protection device 62, the third fuse protection device 72, and the fourth fuse protection device 82, are provided on the respective branches. The branches of the

respective devices

5,6,7,8 are further provided with control units for the respective devices, comprising a first control unit 51, a second control unit 61, a third control unit 71 and a fourth control unit 81. The controller 2 is in control connection with each control unit. In some embodiments, one or more of the individual control units may be relays through which the controller 2 may control the switching of the individual devices. In some embodiments, one or more of the individual control units may be high and low speed control lines, and the controller may operate the fan motor at different rotational speeds by selectively communicating the high and low speed control lines. In some embodiments, one or more of the individual control units may be a control circuit board through which the controller may regulate the rotational speed of the fan motor. The power supply 1 is electrically coupled to the

respective devices

5,6,7,8 to form a power supply loop for supplying power to the respective devices. Optionally, the power source 1 is also electrically coupled to the controller 2 for supplying power to the controller 2. The battery 3 is electrically connected to the power source 1, and provides power required at the start of the system and stores power when the system is operating normally. The controller 2 may obtain the output current or output power of the power supply 1. In some embodiments, the controller 2 communicates with the power source 1, for example by means of a LIN network, to obtain the output current or output power of the power source 1 in real time, which can be calculated by obtaining the excitation current of the power source 1 and based on the relation between the excitation current and the output current or output power fitted by experimental data. The controller 2 is also in control connection with components 4 in the refrigeration system to control these components 4, the components 4 may include various valves in the system, and so on. The controller 2 is also in control connection with the

control units

51,61,71,81 of the respective devices for controlling the respective devices. Because the branch lines of each device have large current, the controller 2 is not directly connected to each branch line, and therefore, although the controller 2 sends control instructions to each control unit, the controller 2 cannot directly obtain the feedback of the working state of each device. For example, even when the first fuse protector 52 blows, the controller 2 cannot directly know that the first device 5 stops operating. To detect such faults, the controller 2 performs the steps detailed below.

Referring to fig. 2, the detection method performed by the controller 2 generally includes: step S0 starts detection, step S1 performs preliminary detection, step S2 performs fine detection and step S3 gives an alarm.

Continuing to refer to fig. 3, the preliminary detection step is described in detail in which the difference between the power supply output current or output power and the theoretical output current or output power is mainly compared, and when the difference is significant, the abnormality of the device in the system is considered to exist. In some embodiments, the preliminary detection step of the fault detection method according to the present invention comprises: step S11 starts. In step S12, it is determined whether the system parameters are stable, and in the case that the refrigeration system is just started or in an unstable state, the output current or the output power of the power supply may fluctuate, and in order to avoid misdiagnosis when the fluctuation exists, the controller 2 may set some parameters to determine whether the system is stable in step S12. In some embodiments, the controller 2 determines whether the output current or output power is stable within a certain interval and for a certain time, such as the output current or output power is within plus or minus 10 percent and for more than 30 seconds, etc., and for example, the controller 2 determines whether the system temperature is maintained within a certain interval and for a certain time, etc. It should be appreciated that the system parameters are not limited to the specific embodiments described above. When the controller 2 determines that the system parameter is not stable, it proceeds to step S17, and the determination of step S12 is performed after a certain delay time, for example, a delay of 1 minute, etc., is performed. When the controller 2 determines that the system parameter is stable, it proceeds to step S13 to acquire the output current or output power of the power supply. The controller 2 may be connected to the power supply 1 through a LIN network, and obtain an excitation current of the power supply 1, and calculate an output current or output power of the power supply 1 based on a relationship between the excitation current and the output current or output power. Alternatively, the controller 2 may obtain the output current or the output power of the power supply 1 by other means. In step S14, the controller 2 calculates a theoretical output current or output power of the power supply according to the operation state of the system. Since the working states of the high-power devices in the system are controlled by the control instructions sent by the controller 2, the controller 2 can predict the working states of the devices according to the control instructions and calculate the theoretical output current or output power of the power supply in the working states, for example, the controller 2 can control the first device, the third device, the second device and the fourth device to operate at high rotation speed, and the controller 2 can calculate the theoretical output current or output power of the power supply in the working states, namely, the sum of the consumed currents or powers of the devices in the working states. It should be appreciated that the order of steps S13 and S14 may be reversed or may be performed simultaneously. Then in step S15, the power supply output current or output power is compared with the power supply theoretical output current or output power to determine whether there is an abnormality in the system. In some embodiments, whether an abnormality exists in the system may be determined based on a difference or ratio of the power supply output current or output power to the power supply theoretical output current or output power. Taking the difference as an example, when the difference is greater than a certain preset value, the equipment in the system is considered to work abnormally, the step S16 is started, the system is marked as abnormal, if the difference is within the preset range, the step S18 is started, the step S12 is started again after a certain time, such as 1 minute, is delayed, and the detection is performed again. In step S15, in addition to determining the abnormality of the system based on the difference and ratio of the power supply output current or output power and the power supply theoretical output current or output power, the power supply output current or output power and the power supply theoretical output current or output power may be processed based on other mathematical methods to obtain a reference standard and determine whether the abnormality exists in the system. Further, it should be understood that marking a system abnormality in step S16 means only that there may be an abnormality in the system, not that the system is necessarily abnormal, and therefore, an alarm may not be issued to the user in this step.

Continuing to refer to fig. 4 and 5, the fine detection step in which the operating state of at least one device is changed and the power supply output current or output power before and after the change of the operating state is compared to determine whether or not the at least one device is abnormal is described in detail. In some embodiments, the fine detection step includes starting at step S20. In step S21, it is determined whether or not there is a system abnormality flag, and if not, the routine returns to step S11 of preliminary detection to perform the preliminary detection again, and if yes, the routine proceeds to step S22. In step S22, similar to the preliminary detection step S12, it is again determined whether the system parameters including, but not limited to, the power supply output current or output power, the control parameters of the controller, the cooling system mode, the cooling system itself temperature, and the cooling box region temperature are stable. If the selected judgment standard parameters remain stable, the step S24 is performed, otherwise, the step S23 is performed for a certain time delay and the fine detection is restarted. In step S24 it is determined whether the current state satisfies a condition for changing the operating state of at least one device. For example, assuming that the refrigeration system is in a defrost mode, it is not appropriate to change the operating conditions of, for example, the condensing fan motor and the evaporating fan motor. It will be appreciated that the purpose of this step is to ensure that the detection does not substantially affect the proper operation of the refrigeration system. It should be appreciated that step S22 and step S24 may be reversed or performed simultaneously. Therefore, when the current state does not satisfy the condition for changing the operation state of the apparatus, the process proceeds to step S25, delays for a second predetermined time such as 1 minute, and re-proceeds to step S21, and if the current state satisfies the condition for changing the operation state, proceeds to step S26. In steps S26 and S28, it is determined whether or not the inspection of each device is completed, and each device is detected one by one, wherein the detecting step S27 may be performed, for example, as a flow shown in fig. 5.

In the check for the first device, step S271 records the power supply output current or output power data before changing the operating state of the device, wherein the controller can acquire the power supply output current or output power, for example, also via the LIN network. In S272, the controller 2 changes the operation state of the first device 5 by the first control unit 51, for example, turns off the first device 5 or changes the power of the first device 5. In case the first device 5 is a fan motor, the rotational speed of the first device 5 may be changed. The output current or output power of the changed power supply is recorded in step S273. In step S274, the power supply output current or output power before and after the change of the operation state of the first device is compared to determine whether or not there is an abnormality in the first device. In some embodiments, it is determined whether an abnormality exists in the motor based on a difference or ratio of the power supply output current or output power before and after the change in the operating state of the motor. Normally, after changing the operating state of the first device, the output current or output power of the power supply will change significantly, and there will be a change in the output current or output power of the power supply before and after the change in the operating state of the motor, i.e. their difference will be larger than a predetermined value. However, when their difference is substantially zero or less than a predetermined value, it may be considered that an abnormality has occurred in the first device, i.e., it is possible that the first fuse protector 52 has been fused, so that the first device is disconnected. In some embodiments, the power supply output current or output power before and after the change of the operating state of the first device may also be processed based on other mathematical methods to obtain a reference standard and determine whether an abnormality exists in the first device. When the first device is abnormal, the process proceeds to step S31, an abnormality alarm of the first device is sent, the first device is marked to be detected, and the process returns to step S24, if the first device is not abnormal, the process proceeds to step S275, the first device is marked to be detected, the process returns to step S24, and the next device detection step is entered.

In some embodiments, the controller 2 is configured to detect all devices in the refrigeration system one by one. In other embodiments, the controller 2 may only detect a portion of the devices, e.g., where the first device 5 and the second device 6 are condensing fan motors and the third device 7 and the fourth device 8 are evaporating fan motors, the above detection steps may be performed only for the first device 5 and the second device 6. When the primary detection prompt system is abnormal and the performed fine detection step prompts that the first equipment 5 and the second equipment 6 are not abnormal, the evaporation fan motor can be not detected one by one any more, and an evaporation fan abnormal alarm can be directly sent out.

It should be appreciated that in the embodiment of fig. 5, the operating state of the first device 5 is changed only once in step S272, and in alternative embodiments, the operating state of the first device 5 may be changed multiple times, e.g., two or three times, to more accurately determine whether an anomaly exists in the first device 5. For example, the following steps may be performed to record power supply output current or output power data; the controller 2 turns off the first device 5 by means of the first control unit 51; recording power supply output current or output power data for the second time; the controller 2 turns on the first device 5 through the first control unit 51; and the power supply output current or output power data is recorded for the third time. Therefore, three groups of power supply output current or output power data before and after changing the working state of the equipment twice can be obtained. In some embodiments, the determination may be made based on the first two sets of data and the review may be made based on the second two sets of data, in other embodiments, whether the first device is abnormal may be determined based on the three sets of data, e.g., in some embodiments, the presence of an abnormality may be determined based on the mean square error of the three sets of data.

According to another aspect of the present invention, the present invention also provides a fault detection system that performs the fault detection method according to the various embodiments of the present invention. Further, a refrigeration system is provided that includes a controller having a fault detection system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

The specific embodiments described above are merely illustrative of the principles of the present invention in order to more clearly illustrate the invention, the various components of which are shown or described clearly to make the principles of the invention easier to understand. Various modifications or alterations of this invention may be readily made by those skilled in the art without departing from the scope of this invention. It is to be understood that such modifications and variations are intended to be included within the scope of the present invention.

Claims

1. A fault detection method for a refrigeration system, the method comprising:

a preliminary detection step, the preliminary detection step comprising:

acquiring output current or output power of a power supply when system parameters are stable, and judging whether the system parameters are stable or not after delaying for a first preset time when the system parameters are not stable;

calculating a theoretical output current or output power of the power supply;

comparing the output current or output power of the power supply with the theoretical output current or output power of the power supply to judge whether an abnormality exists in the system; and

marking system anomalies when anomalies are present in the system; and

a fine detection step, the fine detection step comprising:

judging whether a system abnormality mark exists, wherein if the system abnormality mark does not exist, the method returns to the preliminary detection step;

judging whether the system parameters are stable again, wherein if the system parameters are not stable, delaying for a certain time and restarting the fine detection; and

the operating state of at least one device is changed and the power supply output current or output power before and after the change of the operating state of the at least one device is compared to determine whether an abnormality exists in the at least one device.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining whether a system is abnormal based on a difference or ratio of the power supply output current or output power to the power supply theoretical output current or output power.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining whether an abnormality exists in the device based on a difference or ratio of the power supply output current or output power before and after the change in the operating state of the device.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the apparatus comprises a plurality of condensing fan motors and/or evaporating fan motors connected in parallel.

5. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 4, further comprising changing the operation state of each device one by one to determine whether or not each device is abnormal one by one when there is an abnormality in the system.

6. The method of any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein changing the operational state of at least one device comprises turning the at least one device on or off.

7. The method of any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein changing the operating state of at least one device comprises decreasing or increasing the rotational speed of the at least one device.

8. The method of any one of claims 1 to 4, comprising communicating with the power source over a LIN network to obtain an excitation current of the power source, and deriving the power source output current or output power based on the excitation current.

9. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 4, further comprising obtaining the power supply output current or output power if the system parameters are stable; and when the system parameters are unstable, delaying for a first preset time to judge whether the system parameters are stable again.

10. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 4, further comprising determining whether a current state of the system satisfies a change condition before changing an operating state of at least one device; and when the current state of the system does not meet the change condition, delaying for a second preset time to judge whether the current state of the system meets the change condition again.

11. The method of any one of claims 1 to 4, further comprising determining whether the system is currently in a defrost mode prior to changing the operating state of at least one device.

12. A method according to any one of claims 1 to 4, characterized in that the method comprises changing the operating state of the same device a plurality of times.

13. A fault detection system for a refrigeration system, wherein the fault detection system performs the method of any of claims 1-4.

14. A refrigeration system, comprising:

a power supply;

a plurality of parallel devices electrically connected with the power supply, wherein a control unit is arranged on a branch of each device; and

the controller can acquire the output current or the output power of the power supply and is in control connection with the control unit of each device;

the method of claim 13, wherein the controller includes a fault detection system for a refrigeration system.

15. The refrigeration system of claim 14 wherein the control unit of each device is a relay through which the controller controls the switching of each device.

16. The refrigeration system of claim 14 wherein the control unit of each device is a control circuit board, and the controller controls the rotational speed of each device through the control circuit board.

17. The refrigeration system of any one of claims 14-16 wherein said controller communicates with said power source over a LIN network to draw an excitation current of said power source and to draw said power source output current or output power based on said excitation current.

18. The refrigeration system of any of claims 14-16 wherein the plurality of parallel devices includes an evaporator fan motor and/or a condenser fan motor.

19. The refrigeration system of claim 14 wherein the refrigeration system is a transport refrigeration system.