- Pumps have a wide range of applicat ions. Methods for fault detection of motors are
increasingly being used for pumps. In the context of this paper, a test bench is built to investigate
circulation pumps for faults. As a use case, the fault of impeller clogging was first measured and
then examined with the help of motor current signature analysis. It can be seen that there are four
frequencies at which there is an increase in amplitude in case of a fault. The sidebands around the
supply frequency are in particular f ocus. The clogging of three and four of a total of seven channels
leads to the highest amplitudes at the fault frequencies. The efficiency is reduced by 9 to 15% in case
of faulty opera tion. These results indicate that the implementation of fault detection algorithms on
the pump electronics represents added value for the pump operator. Furthermore, the results can be
transferred to other applications.