Development of Rolling Element Bearing Test Bench Facility And Application of Wavelet Transform for Fault Diagnosis

Abstract

The aim of this experimental study is to develop an efficient rolling element bearing fault detection technique which could be effectively utilized for easy interpretation of bearing signal data. This paper deals with a new scheme for the diagnosis of localized defects in rolling element bearing based on Wavelet Transform. Vibration signal for healthy bearing, bearing with outer race fault, inner race fault and ball fault were acquired from a bearing test bench fabricated at Naval Institute of Aeronautical Technology, Kochi. The vibration signal was acquired using an accelerometer, control card and Data acquisition card. The acquired signal was further processed using a time frequency analysis technique known as Wavelet Transform. The experiments were carried out using different mother wavelets. However, defect features were best obtained using Complex Gaussian Wavelet of order 8, thereby rendering easier interpretation of the analysed data.