Active shaft grounding system with diagnostic waveform analysis

A method for operating a shaft grounding system comprising:

• recording a voltage signal associated with a shaft of a rotating equipment by a voltage sensor;
• characterizing a grounding waveform of said voltage signal over time by a processor;
• comparing a shape aspect of the grounding waveform to a shape aspect of a baseline waveform model and a shape aspect of a fault waveform model by the processor, wherein the baseline waveform model comprises a group of expected waveforms related to a normal operation of the rotating equipment, and wherein the fault waveform model comprises waveforms related to fault and degradation conditions of the rotating equipment;
• analyzing the grounding waveform to find faults and degradation events of the rotating equipment based on similarities with the fault waveform model by the processor;
• diagnosing a condition of the rotating equipment by the processor when the grounding waveform indicates a behavior of the rotating equipment that deviates from the baseline waveform model based on the comparison;
• wherein the diagnosing step further comprises:
• predicting a continuing waveform of a grounding voltage of the shaft based on periodic aspects thereof,
• determining a counteracting waveform for a counteracting voltage that will minimize the predicted continuing waveform of the grounding voltage;
• applying the counteracting waveform of the counteracting voltage to the predicted continuing waveform of the grounding voltage of the shaft;
• and
• diagnosing the condition of the rotating equipment by analyzing characterized waveforms of the counteracting voltage and the grounding voltage;
• wherein the diagnosis comprises a malfunction of a shaft grounding brush, a malfunction of a bearing pedestal ground, or a malfunction of a shaft monitoring system,
• changing the behavior of the rotating equipment that deviates from the baseline waveform model based on the diagnosis;
• outputting an alert for the rotating equipment by the processor based on the diagnosis;
• and
• applying a counteracting voltage to the shaft to minimize the grounding voltage of the shaft of the rotating equipment based on the diagnosis.