Hawkeye: Phase Alarms

All phase alarms are setup in the Hawk GUI, in a dedicated tab called “Phase Alarms” in the Channel Configuration page.

Phase alarm settings are saved in a separate binary file (extension ”.phs”) attached to the configuration file.

For each channel configuration, it is therefore possible to define a different set of phase alarms.

Setting up Phase Alarms

Phase alarm tab is activated in the preferences page, “Visual” tab, by ticking the “Phase Alarm” option.

Setting up an order

Select a channel in the grid on the left. On the right, the top grid will contains the list of orders that the user wishes to monitor. For each order defined, the user has to provide the following information:

• Order number, as a real number (i.e. fractional orders are valid).
• Name of the speed channel against which the order will be tracked
• Speed unit  in which alarm speed range will be define 
• % Margin: defines the frequency range, as a percentage of the current order frequency, and centred on this frequency, where we’ll look for the maximum PSD value in the FFT bins.
• Enabled: to enable / disable phase safety monitoring on this order.

Right-clicking in the order grid gives access to a pop-up menu with several editing options:

• Copy / paste order settings (with or without its alarms), to copy paste order settings from one channel into another.
• Delete order / Delete all orders

Setting up phase alarms on an order

For each order, the bottom grid allows the user to define a set of phase alarms, at different speed values. For each alarm, the user has to provide the following information:

• Start Speed / Stop Speed: alarm will be active when current speed value is within the speed range defined.
• Phase Alarm Level 1 and 2 (in degrees / radians): defines the alarm zone
• Warning Level 1 and 2 (in degrees / radians) : defines the warning zone

Any phase value outside those 2 zones is considered as a “normal” / “safe” value.

The phase is defined for a range between -180 and 180 degrees, or –Pi and Pi radians.

A pie chart below the alarm shows a polar representation of the alarm zones.

The user can’t define 2 alarms with overlapping speed range. The software will automatically resize the speed range to prevent it. In other words, for a given channel and order, one alarm at most can be active at any given time.

Right-clicking in the alarm grid gives access to a pop-up menu with several editing options:

• Copy / paste alarm, to copy and paste alarm settings from one order to another.
• Delete alarm / Delete All alarms
• Choose phase unit (degrees / radians), to define alarm speed range.

Display the Phase Alarms

While scanning, phase alarms are displayed in the alarm grid, and the polar instrument.

In the polar plot, predefined orders (the ones defined in the phase safety file) are automatically added to the list of orders to be tracked. They are displayed in pink, to differentiate them from the “regular” orders, which have been defined specifically in this instrument. The far right column contains a check box to select which predefined order the user wishes to display.

On the polar graph, orange and red dots represent the safety phase limits levels for the current order. If the current order does not come from the safety file, no limit levels are displayed.

In the example above, we have previously setup in the phase safety setup order 1 vs. speed channel N1, and we have defined 2 alarms:

• One is active between 0 and 3000 RPM with alarm limits set to -20 and +20 degrees, and warning limits set to -10 and +10 degrees.
• One is active between 3000 and 6000 RPM with alarm limits set to -60 and +60 degrees, and warning limits set to -10 and +10 degrees.

On the polar plot, in the order setup order grid, we have selected order 1 vs N1 from the phase safety file to be displayed.

The example above shows the active alarm limits at N1 = 3000 RPM.

As speed increases, the active alarm changes and the graphs show the phase limits at N1 = 3300 RPM (see below):

Now, if the phase moves into the warning / alarm zone, the graph background turns orange / red:

Phase Alarm Logging

In the phase Alarm tab, the user can define a logging Speed (in RPM) for each order defined.

On the HawkEye server, for each order, the phase value will be logged in a CSV file each time the speed will cross the “loggingRPM” value (whether speed is ascending or descending).

All CSV files are stored in a root directory which is configurable in the HawkEyeServer’s INI file (section “Phase”, Key “LogDir”). By default, the root directory is named “Phase Logs” and is in the directory where HawkEyeServer application is installed.

There is one “current” CSV file per configuration. In the root directory, each CSV file is stored in the sub directory named <Engine Name>\<test Name>\<Configuration name>. The name of the CSV file is “PhaseLog.csv”.

Each time a new phase value must be logged in, a new line is appended to the current CSV file. When the CSV file reaches the maximum size, it is renamed as “PhaseLog_<current PC time>.csv” and a new “PhaseLog.csv” is created. Maximum file size (in Kbytes) is configurable in the HawkEye server’s INI file (section “Phase”, Key “LogFileMaxSizeKBytes”). By default, it is set to 1024 Kbytes.

When the system goes into scanning, the CSV file corresponding to the current configuration is open. It is closed when the system goes out of scanning. When going to scanning, if “PhaseLog.csv” does not exist, it will be created as soon as there is a phase value to log.

If the user wishes to start a new CSV file, he/she can do so by simply taking away the current “PhaseLog.csv”, when the system is not scanning. If, for a given configuration, the user wants the whole history of phase values, he/she needs to collect the current “PhaseLog.csv” as well as all the files named “PhaseLog_< PC time>.csv”.

In the CSV file, each line contains the following information:

• Data time
• Channel No / Name / units / power factor / Order number / Amplitude
• Speed Channel No / name / RPM value / Run up or down
• Phase