Overview of Fault Diagnosis Methods for Top Drive System

Top drive system (TDS) is an important equipment in drilling operation, and its normal operation plays a crucial role in drilling and downhole safety. With the increasing complexity of drilling conditions, TDS is also developing towards larger size and higher power, and equipment failure has attracted increasing attention. The application of fault diagnosis technology in TDS’s fault diagnosis can improve the reliability of TDS, reduce its maintenance cost, and provide scientific basis for intelligent management and maintenance. The existing fault diagnosis methods of top drive are classified, the basic principles and advantages and disadvantages of these methods are pointed out through the analysis of the existing qualitative and quantitative fault diagnosis methods of TDS, which provides a theoretical basis for the application and development of the TDS’s fault diagnosis methods. On above basis, the predictive maintenance (PdM), a hot research topic in the future, is discussed. Different from the condition-based maintenance (CBM), the PdM is more focused on the prediction and utilization of the future state of the system, which can truly prevent the failure before it occurs.