Discriminating the lubrication condition from the rotor bearing fault in induction motors using Margenau-Hill frequency distribution and artificial neural networks

Abstract

Purpose About 13 to 44 per cent of motor faults are caused by bearing failures in induction motors (IMs), where lubrication plays a significant role in maintaining rotating equipment because it minimizes friction and prevents wear by separating parts that move next to each other, and more than 35 per cent of bearing failures can be attributed to improper lubrication. An excessive amount of grease causes the rollers or balls to slide along the race instead of turning, and the grease will actually churn. This churning action will eventually wear down the base oil of the grease and all that will be left to lubricate the bearing is a thickener system with little or no lubricating properties. The heat generated from the churning, insufficient lubricating oil will begin to harden the grease, and this will prevent any new grease added to the bearing from reaching the rolling elements, with the consequence of bearing failure and equipment downtime. Regarding the case of grease excess in bearings, this case has not been sufficiently studied. This work aims to present an effective methodology applied to the detection and automatic classification of mechanical bearing faults and bearing excessively lubricated conditions in an IM through the Margenau-Hill distribution (MHD) and artificial neural networks (ANNs), where the obtained results demonstrate the correct classification of the studied cases. Design/methodology/approach This work proposed an effective methodology applied to the detection and automatic classification of mechanical bearing faults and bearing excessively lubricated conditions in an IM through the MHD and ANNs. Findings In this paper, three cases of study for a bearing in an IM are studied, detected and classified correctly by combining some methods. The marginal frequency is obtained from the MHD, which in turn is achieved from the stator current signal, and a total of six features are estimated from the power spectrum, and these features are forwarded to the designed ANN with three output neurons, where each one represents a condition in the IM: healthy bearing, mechanical bearing fault and excessively lubricated bearing. Practical implications The proposed methodology can be applied to other applications; it could be useful to use a time–frequency representation through the MHD for obtaining the energy density distribution of the signal frequency components through time for analysis, evaluation and identification of faults or conditions in the IM for example; therefore, the proposed methodology has a generalized nature that allows its application for detecting other conditions or even multiple conditions under different working conditions by a proper calibration. Originality/value The lubrication plays a significant role in maintaining rotating equipment because it minimizes friction and prevents wear by separating parts that move next to each other, and more than 35 per cent of bearing failures can be attributed to improper lubrication and it negatively affects the efficiency of the motor, resulting in higher operating costs. Therefore, in this work, a new methodology is proposed for the detection and automatic classification of mechanical bearing faults and bearing excessively lubricated conditions in an IM through the MHD and ANNs. The proposed methodology uses a total of six features estimated from the power spectrum, and these features are sent to the designed ANN with three output neurons, where each one represents a condition in the IM: healthy bearing, mechanical bearing fault and excessively lubricated bearing. From the obtained results, it was demonstrated that the proposed approach achieves higher classification performance, compared to short-time Fourier transform, Gabor transform and Wigner-Ville distribution methods, allowing to identify mechanical bearing faults and bearing excessively lubricated conditions in an IM, with a remarkable 100 per cent effectiveness during classification for treated cases. Also, the proposed methodology has a generalized nature that allows its application for detecting other conditions or even multiple conditions under different working conditions by a proper calibration.