Study on FPGA-Based Emulator for the Diagnosis of Gradual Degradation in Reciprocating Pump

The purpose of this study is to develop a method for diagnosing the degree of gradual degradation of a reciprocating pump caused by continuous use as a water supply pump in a nuclear power plant. Normally, the progress of such degradation is too slow to be noticed. Hence, it is difficult to determine the degree of degradation using the existing diagnostic methods. In this paper, we propose a new method by which the normal state and the degraded state of the pump can be differentiated, so that the degree of degradation can be identified. First, an emulator was developed using FPGA by providing the parameters of the pump under normal state, so that the emulator generates the information of the pump in the healthy state. Then, by comparing this information with the parameters received from various output sensors of the emulator during the current state, it is possible to identify and measure the degree of gradual degradation. This paper presents some of the results obtained during the development process, and results that show how the emulator operates, by comparing the data collected from an actual pump.