General Log-Linear Weibull Model Combining Vibration and Temperature Characteristics for Remaining Useful Life Prediction of Rolling Element Bearings

Abstract

In industrial applications, the vibration and temperature measurements of rolling element bearings are known as two popular condition monitoring methods. The previously published method for remaining useful life (RUL) prediction has been limited to using the vibration signal. However, a single signal source cannot fully reflect the degradation trend of bearings, influencing the RUL prediction precision. In this paper, a novel general log-linear Weibull (GLL-Weibull) model is constructed by considering vibration and temperature condition monitoring signals to estimate the model parameters. During the feature extraction stage, the relative root mean square (RRMS) is derived from the monitored vibration signal, and the relative temperature trend value is extracted from the monitored temperature signal to eliminate individual differences in bearings and random signal fluctuations. Then, a fuzzy operator is introduced to describe the degree of an “overheated bearing” and “excessive bearing vibrations.” During the RUL prediction stage, both the extracted vibration and temperature characteristics are used to create the GLL-Weibull model. The best parameters are attained by employing the maximum likelihood estimation approach. The algorithm performance is checked with criteria like the root mean square error (RMSE) and the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE). The effectiveness and superiority of the presented approach are validated by two real-life prognosis cases. According to the experimental results, the presented approach provides superior prediction precision and lower computational cost than other approaches for bearings under constant or variable operating conditions.