US Patent Issued to Flowserve on Aug. 26 for "Integral motor pump or turbine with sensorless monitoring of axial bearing wear" (Pennsylvania, Oklahoma Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 26 -- United States Patent no. 12,398,659, issued on Aug. 26, was assigned to Flowserve Pte. Ltd. (Singapore).

"Integral motor pump or turbine with sensorless monitoring of axial bearing wear" was invented by Zachary Dennis (Emmaus, Pa.), Joseph Pitino (Greentown, Pa.) and Sean A. Cain (Tulsa, Okla.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Axial bearing wear of a directly driven, axial, integral motor pump (IMP) or integral motor turbine (IMT) is monitored without use of sensors by estimating an axial rotor-stator gap according to a known dependence of the back EMF on the impeller rotation rate and the rotor-stator gap. The back EMF can be directly measured, for example between im...