Cyclostationary Analysis for Gearbox and Bearing Fault Diagnosis

Abstract

Gearbox and rolling element bearing vibration signals feature modulation, thus being cyclostationary. Therefore, the cyclic correlation and cyclic spectrum are suited to analyze their modulation characteristics and thereby extract gearbox and bearing fault symptoms. In order to thoroughly understand the cyclostationarity of gearbox and bearing vibrations, the explicit expressions of cyclic correlation and cyclic spectrum for amplitude modulation and frequency modulation (AM-FM) signals are derived, and their properties are summarized. The theoretical derivations are illustrated and validated by gearbox and bearing experimental signal analyses. The modulation characteristics caused by gearbox and bearing faults are extracted. In faulty gearbox and bearing cases, more peaks appear in cyclic correlation slice of 0 lag and cyclic spectrum, than in healthy cases. The gear and bearing faults are detected by checking the presence or monitoring the magnitude change of peaks in cyclic correlation and cyclic spectrum and are located according to the peak cyclic frequency locations or sideband frequency spacing.