Smoothing and expansion of the experimental mode shapes of an electrical submersible pump

High installation and maintenance costs of electrical submersible pumps (ESP) operating in deepwater production wells led to the development of rigorous tests to verify the performance and structural integrity of this equipment. The so-called integration tests are the last opportunity to evaluate the ESP set before it is dispatched for installation in oil production wells. Due to the possibility of mechanical failures during the integration tests, vibration analysis and fault identification methodologies are being proposed to identify the most common faults prematurely, before they lead to catastrophic damage. The methodology proposed in this work is part of this effort and allows smooth and expand the ESP's experimental mode shapes, for locations that have not been instrumented. The local correspondence of modes and modal coordinates, proposed in this work, optimizes the sets of finite element modes and experimental degrees of freedom that should be used to maximize the modal assurance criteria (MAC). Thus, it is not necessary to carry out an exhaustive search across the entire FE modal base and combinatorial analysis can be used to search for optimal sets of FE mode shapes and experimental DOFs. Results showed that the smoothing process was successful, with MAC values greater than 0.9.