Monitoring System Based on Acoustic Fingerprint for the Crimping Process of the Composite Insulators

The crimping process is mainly determined by the initial tolerance field of the fitting-rod assembly and the hardness of the fittings. The initial tolerance field of the fitting-rod assembly results in a higher crimping pressure as the tolerance field increases. The greater the hardness of the fittings, the higher the crimping pressure. In practice, due to the above mentioned factors, it is impossible to set an optimum crimping pressure to ensure a correct fitting-rod assembly. The article presents a system for monitoring the acoustic emissions during the crimping process of composite insulators. The system achieves an automatic classification of the type of crimping, a database of the acoustic emission graph recordings, the storage of the values as TDMS files, and generates automatic reports of the crimping process. This method was successfully tested.