Design of a Fuzzy Logic control system for monitoring gearbox jamming in a bottle washer machine

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to come up with an intelligent monitoring tool to reduce the number of breakdowns of a beverage company bottle washer. The Fuzzy Logic system was derived among other artificial intelligent systems to be best appropriate to solve the breakdown challenges of the bottle washer. A gearbox is always jamming and it is not easy to troubleshoot the breakdown cause and fuzzy logic is a tool that was used for monitoring. The researchers carried out a company audit, interviews and administered questionnaires in order to gather relevant data. The results were used in intelligent condition-based-maintenance modelling to solve the problem using fuzzy logic system and it was found that oil level should be always above 40% otherwise the gearbox will be made to stop. Torque is supposed to have a range of values accepted from 0-8 000Nm beyond that we consider the stoppage of the gearbox. Very higher torques above 10000Nm damages the machinery.