Novel method for rolling element bearing health

assessmentA tachometer-less synchronously

averaged envelope feature extraction technique
David Siegel
a,n
, Hassan Al-Atat
a
, Vishwesh Shauche
a
, Linxia Liao
a
,
John Snyder
b
, Jay Lee
a
a
Center for Intelligent Maintenance Systems, University of Cincinnati, P.O. Box 210072, Cincinnati, OH 45221-0072, United States
b
Techsolve Inc, 6705 Steger Drive, Cincinnati, OH 45237-3097, United States
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 7 December 2010
Received in revised form
17 December 2011
Accepted 8 January 2012
Available online 27 January 2012
Keywords:
Synchronous averaging
Hilbert transform
Envelope analysis
Bearing health assessment
a b s t r a c t
The assessment and diagnosis of bearing health using vibration data has been a research
topic of interest for many years and includes developments in an assortment of signal
processing methods and classication algorithms. This paper investigates detecting
bearing degradation at different levels of damage, in that estimating the bearing health
at the various stages of degradation is important for predicting failure as well as making
maintenance decisions. The proposed technique does not require a measure of the
rotational shaft speed or bearing cage speed, which makes it very suitable in certain
applications in which it is very difcult or not cost effective to measure the rotational
speed. To effectively estimate the bearing health state, a novel tachometer-less
synchronously averaged envelope (TLSAE) signal processing and feature extraction
technique for rolling element bearing is proposed. The Tachometer-Less Synchronous
Averaged Envelope (TLSAE) method consists of rst using a narrow band pass lter
around a calculated bearing fault frequency of interest and using the derivative of the
phase of the Hilbert Transform of this narrow band signal to generate a synthesized
tachometer signal that is representative of the impact due to a bearing defect. This
synthesized tachometer signal is combined with the high frequency envelope method
to perform synchronous averaging on the envelope signal, resulting in a defect
synchronous envelope spectrum in which the frequency content is in terms of the
fault frequency orders. The proposed method is further compared and evaluated with
other existing methods, in particular to the traditional Fourier Transform technique, the
bearing envelope analysis technique, and the empirical mode decomposition signal
processing methods on the basis of whether each method provides an enhanced level of
indication that can determine the health of rolling element bearings. Data from a
bearing test-rig is used to facilitate the comparison and evaluation of the signal
processing methods. Vibration data was collected from the test-rig for bearings with
different levels of degradation. The calculated vibration features from the tachometer-
less synchronously averaged envelope (TLSAE) technique are compared to the other
feature extraction techniques; with the synchronous average method providing a set of
bearing vibration features that can distinguish all three levels of damage on the outer
race of the rolling element bearing. Future work looks to further investigate this
proposed technique for data collected during a run to failure test in order to consider its
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ymssp
Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing
0888-3270/$ - see front matter & 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ymssp.2012.01.003
n
Corresponding author. Tel.: 1 513 290 8163.
E-mail address: siegeldn@mail.uc.edu (D. Siegel).
Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 29 (2012) 362376
merits for early detection of incipient bearing damage and whether it provides a
consistent monotonic trend from spall initiation to bearing failure.
& 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Bearing diagnostics has been a topic of research interest for over 20 years, which has fostered many developments in
improved methods for signal processing, as well as improvements in algorithms for anomaly detection, classication and
failure prediction [1]. Considering that rolling element bearings are one of the key components for rotating machinery
such as machine tools, motors, gearboxes, turbo-machinery, among others; the research interest in developing
improvement methods for bearing health monitoring and prognostics is warranted by the prevalent use of bearings and
the impact bearing failure has on the logistics and maintenance cost and downtime for these various applications [2].
Previous evaluation studies on signal processing and feature extraction techniques for bearing health assessment have
either limited the study to a comparison between two techniques; or evaluated each method with a bearing with only one
level of damage. As mentioned in Qiu et al. [3], the bearing degradation stage can be divided into different stages; at the
early degradation stage an envelope demodulation technique might allow for easier detection of characteristic peaks in the
vibration spectrum that are correlated with bearing outer and inner race damage. Limiting the study to bearings with only
one level of damage does not allow for an understanding of which techniques provide the most robust features based on
the level of degradation and damage in the bearing.
Other past studies have focused on timefrequency representations and have compared the use of the continuous
wavelet transform to other timefrequency methods. The timefrequency information that is provided by performing
the wavelet transform of the bearing vibration allows for detecting the impacts due to either outer race or inner race
damage, the visual information and calculated time difference between the impacts provide diagnostic information to
classify whether the bearing is in a healthy or degraded condition [4]. Peng et al. [5] compared the continuous
wavelet transform to the empirical mode decomposition Hilbert Huang Transform timefrequency method, and concluded
that the Hilbert Huang Transform provides better time and frequency resolution compared to the wavelet transform. The
Hilbert Huang Transform and empirical mode decomposition technique developed by Huang et al. [6] has been used as an
effective signal processing technique for non-stationary phenomena including machine diagnostics and structural health
monitoring applications. The use of features extracted from the intrinsic mode functions (IMF) such as the energy level for
each mode can also be used to determine the health of the mechanical components and systems; the use of this technique
was demonstrated for vibration signals from a helicopter health and usage monitoring system and provided indicators that
could clearly classify the degraded transmission system from the healthy system [7]. In Wu and Qu [8], investigation of the
IMFs is used to provide root cause analysis for the higher than normal compression vibration; the abnormal pipe exciting
can be seen by the noticeable amplitude modulation revealed by the time domain signal of one of the IMFs.
The use of synchronous averaging using a tachometer signal and accelerometer have been successfully used for
gear health assessment and diagnosis since the gear mesh frequencies and other indicators are synchronous with
the shaft order; the synchronous average provides an enhancement in the signal to noise ratio since the random noise
is reduced during the averaging [9] Applying synchronous averaging for rolling element bearings is a challenge due
to the bearing fault frequencies being non-synchronous with the shaft speed. For the rolling element bearing application,
the previous use of synchronous averaging required a tachometer signal based on the rotational speed of the bearing cage;
however, this was done in a laboratory setting and in most application it is not feasible to have a tachometer
signal that can measure the rotational speed of the cage [10]. In a previous evaluation study of signal processing
techniques for rolling element bearings [27], it was noted that the bearing envelope analysis method showed the best
results for early detection and this prompted an improved method that captured some of the fundamental principles of the
envelope analysis method. In this particular study, a signal processing technique is developed for rolling element bearing
diagnosis that performs synchronous averaging based on a novel method that estimates the bearing fault frequency and
generates a synthesized pulse train that is representative of the bearing fault frequency impact. The synchronous
averaging is applied using this synthesized tachometer signal for the envelope spectrum; the features extracted from this
particular signal consist of the peak information at the bearing fault frequencies. This particular method is valid for small
uctuations in rotational speed and does not require a tachometer signal for the shaft or for the bearing cage. Features
extracted using traditional signal processing and feature extraction methods such as statistical based features such as root
mean square, kurtosis, as well as frequency domain features such as the magnitude at bearing characteristic frequencies,
as well as the energy of the decomposed signals from the empirical mode decomposition were used as a way to evaluated
and compare each of the signal processing methods. By conducting this study, the advantages of each signal processing
method at the three levels of bearing degradation tested can be used to form a knowledge base of which technique is most
applicable for detecting early or more advanced stages of bearing degradation.
The paper is organized as follows: In Section 2, a review of existing signal processing techniques for rolling element
bearing using vibration data is presented. The described methods will be later used to compare the results with
the proposed method. In Section 3, the detailed description of the proposed method is presented. In Section 4, the
experimental test-rig used for the data collection and testing of the rolling element bearing is presented. In Section 5, the
D. Siegel et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 29 (2012) 362376 363
results from each signal processing method including the new proposed synchronous averaging envelope method are
presented and discussed.
2. Existing signal processing methods for bearing health assessment and fault diagnosis
2.1. Time domain and Fourier transform based feature extraction
Overall vibration levels as well as statistical based indicators are the features extracted from the time domain vibration
signal that have been used in previous bearing diagnostic techniques; there is a level of correlation between the magnitude
of these time domain features and the level of degradation for the rolling element bearing. The root mean square of
the vibration signal is one of the common time domain features used in bearing health monitoring and is shown in Eq. (1).
A common statistical feature extracted from the time domain signal is the statistical standardized fourth moment known
as kurtosis, the equation used to calculate the kurtosis feature is provided in Eq. (2) [11]:
RMS

1
N

N
i 1
xi
2

_
1
Kurtosis
1
N

N
i 1
xix
4
s
4
2
An example time domain vibration signal at 1500 rpm is provided in Fig. 1; note that there is a difference in the overall
vibration magnitude for the health new bearing when compared with the vibration level for the bearings with different
levels of scratch damage. Features such as RMS should be able to capture this difference in the time domain signal for the
bearings with outer race damage compared to the new healthy bearing; however, an overall increase in vibration level for
a mechanical system that consists of gears, bearings and shafts could be due to shaft unbalance or misalignment or a
chipped gear tooth and not necessarily due to bearing degradation. Vibration indicators such as RMS that are only
indicative of overall level in the vibration can only provide an indication on the overall health status of the system but
provide limited root cause and diagnosis information that can determine that the bearing degradation is the cause for the
increase in vibration.
Fig. 1. Time domain vibration signal: (a) time signal for new bearing 1, (b) time signal for bearing with level 1 scratch damage, (c) time signal for bearing
with level 2 scratch damage, (d) time signal for bearing with level 3 scratch damage.
D. Siegel et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 29 (2012) 362376 364
For traditional frequency domain bearing health assessment methods, the bearing fault frequencies are key features
that are extracted from the frequency spectrum, since these particular peaks are associated with damage in a particular
location of a rolling element bearing [12]. The particular equations used to calculate the bearing fault frequencies as well
as the bearings that were tested are provided in Section 4, example plots are shown in this section to illustrate the general
approach of using the traditional FFT method. The frequency domain representation of the vibration signal for 1500 rpm is
shown in Fig. 2; there is a clear difference in the frequency domain signal for the bearings with scratch damage and
the normal baseline bearing. These particular bearings have increasing levels of scratch damage on the outer race and the
frequency corresponding to outer race damage (BPFO) is at approximately 206 Hz. Note that this particular peak in the
frequency domain is clearly higher for the bearing with the second and third level of scratch damage; however the peak is
actually lower in magnitude for the bearing with level 1 scratch damage when compared to the normal bearing. This
provides motivation for using other processing methods for detecting incipient levels of bearing damage.
2.2. Empirical mode decomposition frequency extraction method
The empirical mode decomposition (EMD) technique decomposes the time signal into a set of intrinsic mode functions
(IMFs). This decomposition method was rst developed by Huang et al. [6] and recent interest has seen its application in a
wide variety of signal processing applications. With regard to machine condition monitoring, this method has been used
for timefrequency visualization of rotating machinery defects [5]. In particular, some studies have indicated that the
features from the decomposed signals can be used to differentiate between a healthy and degraded bearing condition
[7,13]. Due to the recent interest in EMD, the study compares the EMD method to the other bearing signal processing and
feature extraction methods. The interested reader is referred to [6] for a complete description on the decomposition
process and how it can be used for timefrequency visualization.
Although a recently popular technique, there are several considerations or attempts made to improve the decomposi-
tion process. Noise assisted techniques or improved spline tting techniques have been proposed to improve the empirical
mode decomposition method [14,15]. However, one major concern with the empirical mode decomposition is its limited
frequency resolution and its inability to separate closely space harmonics [16]. In particular, a theoretical study conducted
by Feldman [17] indicated that closely spaced harmonics with a frequency ratio less than 2/3 could not be separated by
EMD regardless of the amplitude ratio. This limited frequency resolution makes it quite unsuitable for diagnosis of
mechanical systems; however, this study still compares the extracted features from the decomposed signal with vibration
indicators that are indicative of overall machine health.
Fig. 2. Frequency domain vibration signal: (a) frequency domain signal for new bearing 1, (b) frequency domain signal for bearing with level 1 scratch
damage, (c) frequency domain signal for bearing with level 2 scratch damage, (d) frequency domain signal for bearing with level 3 scratch damage.
D. Siegel et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 29 (2012) 362376 365
The EMD technique was applied to the bearing vibration signals collected from the test-rig and the rst 7 intrinsic
mode functions are shown for the rst normal bearing that was tested in Fig. 3. In this particular case, the signal consisted
of 12 intrinsic mode functions and notice that the rst few IMFs are much higher in energy level than each successive IMF.
The results of the EMD decomposition are shown for the bearing with the smallest scratch damage in Fig. 4. From visual
Fig. 3. Intrinsic mode functions (17) from normal bearing 1 vibration signal.
Fig. 4. Intrinsic mode functions (17) from bearing with scratch level 1 vibration signal.
D. Siegel et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 29 (2012) 362376 366
observation it is hard to distinguish the IMFs from the scratched bearing from the normal bearing; however, extracting
features from the IMF signals might provide insight on the condition of the bearing.
In prior work [7], the energy level at each intrinsic mode function provided a useful set of features for classifying the
health condition of a rotorcraft transmission system; the RMS value for each IMF was extracted in this study after the EMD
decomposition. For each IMF, an RMS value was calculated for all 6 bearings, a ratio between the RMS values for each
bearing was compared to the RMS value for the baseline value from normal bearing 1. Fig. 5 shows the ratio between the
RMS values for the bearings with outer race damage and the three normal bearings; IMFs 1-4 and IMFs 8-9 show a much
larger value in RMS value for the bearings with outer race damage when compared with the normal bearings.
2.3. Bearing envelope analysis feature extraction method
The underlying principle in the bearing envelope analysis feature extraction method is that a defect in the bearing inner
or outer race creates an impact that excites the high frequency modes of the system. This creates an amplitude modulation
phenomenon at the high frequency modes that are excited by the bearing impact; the modulated signal is the bearing
characteristic frequency which could be the BPFO or BPFI frequency depending on the location of the bearing damage.
For a very complete tutorial on bearing diagnostics, including the bearing envelope analysis method, the interested reader
is referred to [18]. In this manuscript, selected aspects are reviewed for clarity and also to lead into the proposed
synchronous average method which aims to enhance the envelope method.
A ow chart for the bearing envelope analysis method is illustrated in Fig. 6. It consist of rst identifying a high
frequency resonant peak, choosing an appropriate band pass lter, using the Hilbert Transform and taking the magnitude
of the analytical signal to obtain the envelope; and lastly taking the Fourier Transform of the envelope signal and
extracting the peak information at the bearing fault frequencies.
Perhaps the most important aspect regarding bearing envelope analysis is the selection of a suitable band-pass lter
prior to performing the demodulation. In earlier work, the use of modal testing for nding the structural resonances of the
system or comparing spectrums of a known good and faulted condition were used for selecting the demodulation location
[18]. Modal testing would provide a set of potential natural frequencies to consider; however, it is unlikely to know which
vibration mode would be excited by the localized bearing fault a priori. Although effective, spectral comparison would
require historical data in which a particular fault has occurred, this again would restrict this method if historical data is not
available.
More recently, the use of spectral kurtosis has been demonstrated to be an effective technique for selecting the most
suitable demodulation band for performing bearing envelope analysis and does not require historical data for guiding the
selection of the demodulation band. For a more complete discussion on spectral kurtosis and the kurtogram, the interested
reader is referred to [1921]; however, a brief review is provided in order to highlight the overall concept and how it can
be applied to bearing condition monitoring. Kurtosis as a vibration condition indicator has been used in machine condition
Fig. 5. Comparing RMS ratio values for each IMF number for a bearing with scratch damage compared to normal bearings.
D. Siegel et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 29 (2012) 362376 367
monitoring for quite some time [22]; the physical nature of localized gear or bearing faults would produce impulses and
impacts that would be characterized by higher kurtosis values. As opposed to a global calculation across the entire
frequency spectrum, the spectral kurtosis can be used to provide an indication of which frequency band contains the
maximum level of impulsiveness. This technique can serve two uses for the vibration based condition monitoring; the
selection of the optimum band-pass lter for envelope analysis, and for machine surveillance [20]. In this study, it was
used for both facets, but this section focuses discusses how it can be used for selecting the demodulation band. The
calculation procedure consists of rst performing a short time Fourier Transform (STFT) on the measured accelerometer
vibration signal. The STFT result can be denoted as H(t,f); the average value of the fourth power of H(t,f) divided by the
mean square value of H(t,f) gives the kurtosis value as a function of frequency:
Kf
/H
4
t,f S
/H
2
t,f S
2
2 3
The kurtogram was calculated using the code available at [23], in which the short time Fourier Transform and the
classical kurtosis calculation were selected. The results of performing the kurtogram calculation on are provided in Fig. 7.
The results show a signicantly high kurtosis value at approximately 1800 Hz; this result can be used to guide the band-
pass lter center frequency and bandwidth. The chosen band-pass lter based on the kurtogram results is a Chebyshev
band pass lter of order 9; a center frequency of 1875 Hz and the band-pass frequency range is chosen at 18757840 Hz to
include some of the higher harmonics of the bearing fault frequencies. This band-pass lter was used for both the proposed
synchronous average envelope spectrum method as well as the conventional envelope spectrum. Section 3 presents
the synchronous average method along with plots of the envelope spectrum from both methods for direct comparison.
Section 5 also provides a comparison of both methods with tabular and graphic results of the extracted vibration features.
3. Novel method using synchronous averaging signal processing technique for rolling element bearings
The advantages of using synchronous averaging for gear or shaft related fault diagnosis is well established; however,
amending that approach for non-synchronous vibration frequencies such as the bearing fault frequencies remains
a challenge. Ideally, a measurement of the rotational speed of the cage could provide a method for performing the
synchronous averaging for bearings but this is not always practical in a real application [10]. The particular approach
adopted here is shown as a ow chart in Fig. 8, and in more detail in Fig. 9, in which each signal processing step is shown
with a respective plot.
The rst initial step is to band pass lter around a calculated bearing fault frequency of interest; the band pass lter
limits should be chosen in a very narrow band. In this study, the method was applied to a mechanical system in which the
Fig. 6. Bearing envelope analysis feature extraction method ow diagram.
D. Siegel et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 29 (2012) 362376 368
0.18
0.16
0.14
0.12
0.10
0.08
0.06
0.04
0.02
0
1 0 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Fig. 8. Flow chart for tachometer-less synchronously averaged envelope spectrum (TLSAE) method for rolling element bearings.
0
3
3.6
4
4.6
5
5.6
6
6.6
7
stft-kurt.2 - Kmax = 8.8 @ Nw = 27, fc = 1796.875 Hz
FREQUENCY (Hz)
0
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
1000 2000 3000 4000 5000
Fig. 7. Kurtogram plot using STFT method and classical kurtosis calculation: result is from a vibration signal collected on the experimental test-rig.
D. Siegel et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 29 (2012) 362376 369
bearing shaft speed was kept at a nominal xed speed; further investigation is being considered to investigate the
limitations of this method with regard to speed uctuations.
In this case study, the limits were chosen to be 5 Hz plus or minus the calculated bearing fault frequency. The next step
performs the Hilbert Transform on the ltered signal, the Hilbert Transform is shown in Eq. (4) and is dened as a time
domain convolution between 1/(pt) and the original signal x(t):
yt
1
p
P
_
1
1
xt
tt
dt 4
The original signal, x(t), and the Hilbert Transform of the signal, y(t), form the analytical signal which is provided in
Eq. (5); there is a corresponding envelope and phase of this analytical signal which are shown in Eqs. (6) and (7) [24]. The
phase information of this narrow band signal is a key aspect and allows for the calculation of the instantaneous frequency
which is used for generating the synchronized tachometer signal:
zt xtjyt 5
at xt
2
yt
2

1=2
6
ct arctanyt=xt 7
There are a few methods for calculating the instantaneous frequency; in this current work the derivative of the
unwrapped phase signal is used. Calculating the instantaneous frequency of this signal provides an estimation of the
bearing fault frequency pulses as a function of time. The concept of instantaneous frequency is not well dened if
the signal contains several frequency components [25] but in this particular instance a narrow band pass lter is used prior
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
0.25
0.2
0.15
0.1
0.05
x10-3
TACH SIGNAL
1000 500 52.595 52.59 52.585 52.58 52.575 52.565 52.56 0
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
-0.1
-0.2
-0.3
0.18
0.16
0.14
0.12
0.1
0.08
0.06
0.04
0.02
0
0.22
0.2
0.18
0.16
0.14
0.12
0.1
0.08
0.06
0.18
0.16
0.14
0.12
0.1
0.08
0.06
0.04
0.02
0
1500
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
2000 2500 52.57
Fig. 9. Step by step diagram of tachometer-less synchronously averaged envelope spectrum (TLSAE) method for rolling element bearings.
D. Siegel et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 29 (2012) 362376 370
to performing the Hilbert Transform and the instantaneous frequency calculation. From the estimated frequency
information, a synthesized tachometer signal can be generated from this information; a more detail explanation of this
particular technique that generates a synthesized tachometer pulse train is provided in [26].
Fig. 9 provides a visual ow chart of the proposed processing method as well as intermediate results of the various
processing steps. The instantaneous frequency calculation and synthesized tachometer signal are processed in parallel
with the conventional demodulation step used in bearing envelope analysis. The processed result of the instantaneous
frequency is shown in Fig. 9; there are minor uctuations in the bearing fault frequency impact even though the motor in
the bearing test-rig is set to run at a constant rotational speed.
Since this method is performing the synchronous averaging for the envelope spectrum, a portion of the previously
described high frequency envelope method is used to calculate the envelope signal. The tachometer signal along with the
envelope signal allows the synchronous averaging to be performed. The nal output is a defect synchronous envelope
spectrum in which the frequency content is in terms of the fault frequency orders.
In this particular example, 18 averages were used when performing the synchronous averaging, which results in an
order resolution of 0.1. Two comparative plots are shown to illustrate the improved signal to noise ratio and enhanced
estimation of the bearing fault frequency peak information. The example shown in Fig. 10 compares the traditional
envelope spectrum to the defect synchronous envelope spectrum using the proposed TLSAE method. This particular
bearing had the smallest level of induced damage on the outer race of the ones that were tested; both the envelope
spectrum and defect synchronous envelope spectrum clearly show a noticeable peak at the BPFO, but there is much less
noise associated with the synchronous average envelope spectrum.
A plot of the envelope spectrum and defect synchronous envelope spectrum is shown in Fig. 11 for vibration data collected
for a bearing that had the second largest level of induced outer race damage. In this example, both processing methods can
detect a clearly observable peak related to an outer race fault as well as its harmonics. The reduction in noise, however, is the
potential advantage offered by the TLSAE method. In both example plots, the BPFO peaks and harmonics were easier to visually
observe due to the reduction in random noise. In many automated bearing condition monitoring systems, features such as
bearing fault frequency peak information are extracted from the envelope signal. The extracted features from both the
conventional envelope processing method and the TLSAE method are compared and discussed in Section 5.
V
I
B
R
A
T
I
O
N

M
A
G
N
I
T
U
D
E

(
G
)
FREQUENCY (Hz)
0.03
0.025
0.02
0.015
0.01
0.005
0
0.03
0.025
0.02
0.015
0.01
0.005
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
ORDER IN TERMS OF BPFO
V
I
B
R
A
T
I
O
N

M
A
G
N
I
T
U
D
E

(
G
)
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500
Fig. 10. Comparing synchronous average to traditional envelope spectrum for bearing with smallest level of outer race damage: (a) envelope spectrum
and (b) defect-synchronous envelope spectrum.
0.18
0.16
0.14
0.12
0.1
0.08
0.06
0.04
0.02
0
FREQUENCY (Hz)
0.18
0.16
0.14
0.12
0.1
0.08
0.06
0.04
0.02
0
ORDER IN TERMS OF BPFO
V
I
B
R
A
T
I
O
N

M
A
G
N
I
T
U
D
E

(
G
)
V
I
B
R
A
T
I
O
N

M
A
G
N
I
T
U
D
E

(
G
)
BPFO (207 Hz)
2X BPFO (415 Hz)
1 0 500 2500 2000 1500 1000 0 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Fig. 11. Comparing synchronous average to traditional envelope spectrum for bearing with second level of induced outer race damage: (a) envelope
spectrum and (b) defect-synchronous envelope spectrum.
D. Siegel et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 29 (2012) 362376 371
These two examples shown in Figs. 10 and 11 illustrate the effective use of this proposed TLSAE method for bearing
diagnosis; however, there are a few considerations for using this method. This method would require a synchronous
average spectrum to be calculated for each bearing fault frequency. In this case study, only outer race damage was
induced, so the examples presented are for the bearing fault frequency outer race (BPFO). Another aspect to consider is
that the experimental testing was conducted at a nominally xed rotational speed. Further investigation is needed to
evaluate this proposed method and determine its tolerance for speed uctuations. Also, the bearing impulses typically
have some random percentage of slip on the order of 12% [18]; the inuence this has on the TLSAE method is also planned
for further investigation. Considering that the processing method worked well for this experimental case study in which
there was some amount of random slip, there appears to be promise that warrants further study. A simulation study that
allows the random slip to be controlled and the proposed method to be evaluated for different amounts of random slip
would provide some further guidance and limitations for this processing method.
4. Experimental bearing test-rig conguration
A bearing test-rig was used to evaluate the signal processing and feature extraction methods for bearing health assessment.
The test-rig shown in Fig. 12 consists of a 1 horsepower motor used as the prime mover to drive a shaft coupled with a bearing
housing; an ac drive is used for speed control and to test the bearing at speeds of 1500, 2400 and 3600 rpm. A single axis
accelerometer is placed on the outer surface of the bearing housing to measure the vibration signal for the testing of the
bearing. For data acquisition, a sampling rate of 10 kHz is used with a block size of 10,000 data points is used; 30 blocks of data
are taken for each bearing that is tested at each of the three speeds. In order to compare the results from the different signal
processing methods, 6 bearings are tested; 3 new bearings and 3 bearings with increasing levels of induced scratch damage.
Note that the induced damage is on the outer race for the 3 bearings with scratch damage.
The 6 bearings were of the same type, and for a particular bearing geometry the bearing characteristic frequencies that are
associated with a particular bearing defect such as damage in the outer race can be calculated. The bearing characteristic fault
frequency equations [11] are provided in Eqs. (8)(12) and the calculated quantities are listed in Table 1. For the equations
BEARING HOUSING
SINGLE AXIS ACCELEROMETER
AC MOTOR (1HP)
VARIABLE FREQUENCY DRIVE
Fig. 12. Bearing test-rig.
Table 1
Bearing characteristic frequencies.
Inner race rotational speed o
i
(rpm) 1500
Outer race rotational speed o
o
(rpm) 0
Bearing pitch diameter D
p
(mm) 86
Rolling element diameter D
b
(mm) 11.906
Contact angle y (deg) 15
Number of rotating elements N 19
Order
Outer race defect (BPFO) 8.230
Inner race defect ( BPFI) 10.770
Ball spin frequency (BSF) 3.547
Cage defect frequency (FTF) 0.433
Rolling element defect frequency 7.094
D. Siegel et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 29 (2012) 362376 372
listed, the bearing geometry parameters consist of the ball diameter (D
b
), the pitch diameter (D
p
), the number of rolling
elements (N) and the contact angle (y), which are used to calculate the bearing fault frequencies that are seen in the vibration
spectrum. For extracting features in the frequency domain as well as the envelope method, the peak information at the bearing
fault frequencies are key indicators for assessing the health of the rolling element bearing:
BPFO
N
2
_ _
$ 1
D
b
D
p
_ _
cos y
_ _
8
BPFI
N
2
_ _
$ 1
D
b
D
p
_ _
cos y
_ _
9
BSF
D
p
2D
b
_ _
$ 1
D
b
D
p
_ _
2
cos
2
y
_ _
10
FTF
$
2
_ _
1
D
b
D
p
_ _
cos y
_ _
11
Rolling Element Defect 2 BSF 12
5. Comparative analysis of health assessment results
5.1. Comparison of features for overall machine health
Certain vibration indicators can only provide an indication of the overall machine health state; this particular section
provides a comparison between the processing method and features that are only suitable for this task. Time domain
statistics, features from the empirical mode decomposition (EMD), as well as statistic or overall energy levels from the
band-pass ltered signal suggested by the kurtogram, are a set of indicators that are indicative of the overall machine
health status of the mechanical system but cannot provide detailed diagnosis information. In this case study, the bearings
were either in the normal healthy condition or had a known level of induced damage; the features can be evaluated based
on the known degradation level and their associated value for the three normal cases and the three levels of induced
damage. Table 2 provides a tabular list of the overall health vibration indicators that were considered in this study. Note
that the features shown in this table are divided by the feature value for the rst normal bearing; showing the results as a
ratio allows for a quick insight on how much greater in magnitude each feature is for the bearings with damage compared
to a baseline condition. The RMS feature shows an increasing level that corresponds with increasing level of induced
damage on the outer race of the bearing; however the RMS value for the smallest level of scratch damage is only two times
greater than normal while the energy of the decomposed levels using the empirical mode decomposition method have
features that are 46 times greater than normal for the smallest level of damage.
The energy in the ltered signal is monotonic with the induced outer race damage; this suggest that the kurtogram
provides an effective way of selecting the band pass lter and that there is a considerable difference in this vibration
magnitude in this frequency band between a healthy bearing and one with damage on the outer race. The energy of the
ltered signal provides signicantly more separation between the second and third levels of induced damage compared to
the time statistics or EMD features. The kurtosis features from both the time signal and the ltered signal were not
monotonic with the outer race damage level or provided much separation between a healthy and degraded bearing.
5.2. Comparison of features for bearing diagnosis
A list of the features that were extracted in the frequency domain using the traditional FFT, the envelope spectrum, and the
tachometer-less synchronously averaged envelope (TLSAE) method are provided in Table 3. Note that the convention used for
Table 2
Comparison of potential machine surveillance indicators for assessing bearing condition.
Normal
bearing 1
Normal
bearing 2
Normal
bearing 3
Scratch level 1
bearing
Scratch level 2
bearing
Scratch level 3
bearing
RMS 1.00 1.22 1.08 2.68 7.40 14.72
Kurtosis 1.00 1.45 0.88 0.75 0.58 0.62
IMF1 RMS 1.00 2.89 2.42 6.07 17.66 10.28
IMF2 RMS 1.00 1.98 1.65 4.35 12.66 10.59
IMF3 RMS 1.00 2.92 1.98 4.36 14.08 16.34
IMF4 RMS 1.00 3.00 1.97 3.77 17.67 13.03
Kurtosis of ltered signal 1.00 1.23 0.74 0.68 0.56 0.65
Energy of ltered signal 1.00 5.34 1.16 7.32 144.03 175.70
D. Siegel et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 29 (2012) 362376 373
presenting the results is to show the feature values as a ratio compared to the rst normal bearing. The rst row is the BPFO
feature fromthe FFT, while rows 26 are the peak values of the BPFO and its harmonics from the envelope spectrum, while rows
711 are the peak values of the BPFO and its harmonics from the synchronous average envelope spectrum. The BPFO feature
extracted from the Fourier Transform of the original signal is approximately 5 times larger for a bearing with scratch level 2
damage compared to a normal bearing. At the early stages, for the bearing with scratch level 1 damage, the BPFO magnitude is
actually less compared to a normal bearing. The traditional frequency domain features such as BPFO did not provide an
indication of early bearing degradation; this shows the limitation of using the traditional FFT for bearing fault diagnosis.
The BPFO and 2XBPFO taken from the envelope spectrum are a much more robust set of features for detecting bearing
degradation at the early stages. For example, the envelope BPFO feature for a bearing with scratch level 1 damage is
approximately 5 times larger compared to the normal baseline bearing and this particular feature increases with the level
of outer race damage. The tachometer-less synchronously averaged envelope (TLSAE) feature for 2XBPFO is more robust
then the envelope 2XBPFO feature for detecting damage at lower level. It is approximately 10 times larger for the bearing
with the smallest level of outer race scratch as opposed to the very marginal separation between a normal bearing and the
smallest level of outer race damage provided by the traditional envelope 2XBPFO feature.
Considering that the tabular results are showing the mean feature value, it is perhaps further illustrative to show
graphical plots of the calculated features to further examine whether the TLSAE processing method provides less variation
Table 3
Comparison of potential bearing diagnostics features for assessing bearing condition; subscript e denotes features extracted using the envelope method
while new indicates features extracted under the proposed TLSAE method.
Normal
bearing 1
Normal
bearing 2
Normal
bearing 3
Scratch
level 1 bearing
Scratch level
2 bearing
Scratch level
3 bearing
BPFO FFT 1.00 0.36 0.85 0.46 5.21 3.74
BPFOe 1.00 1.74 0.58 5.19 26.27 50.50
2XBPFOe 1.00 2.58 1.06 2.66 9.99 86.93
3XBPFOe 1.00 1.58 0.94 3.51 60.06 93.23
4XBPFOe 1.00 1.43 1.05 2.35 8.59 57.54
5XBPFOe 1.00 1.43 1.05 11.60 38.38 57.54
New BPFO 1.00 1.84 0.34 6.13 32.31 56.56
New 2XBPFO 1.00 1.33 0.39 9.76 30.02 74.98
New 3XBPFO 1.00 1.65 0.46 5.47 21.61 92.16
New 4XBPFO 1.00 1.28 0.50 4.88 6.16 54.50
New 5XBPFO 1.00 1.43 0.50 4.47 8.82 75.58
B
P
F
O

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A
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E

(
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)
180 160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0
0.25
0.2
0.15
0.1
0.05
0
NORMAL BEARING 1
NORMAL BEARING 2
NORMAL BEARING 3
SCRATCH LEVEL 1
SCRATCH LEVEL 2
SCRATCH LEVEL 3
SAMPLE #
B
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O

M
A
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(
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180 160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0
0.25
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0
NORMAL BEARING 1
NORMAL BEARING 2
NORMAL BEARING 3
SCRATCH LEVEL 1
SCRATCH LEVEL 2
SCRATCH LEVEL 3
SAMPLE #
Fig. 13. Comparing results from BPFO feature: (a) envelope spectrum and (b) tachometer-less synchronously averaged envelope (TLSAE) method.
D. Siegel et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 29 (2012) 362376 374
in the calculate features and a more consistent health estimation when compared with the traditional envelope processing
method. Fig. 13 shows the BPFO feature from the envelope processing method and the TLSAE processing method. The
results show that both methods can clearly distinguish all levels of outer race damage; however, the TLSAE method has a
more consistent feature value with less variation for the bearing with the largest level of outer race damage. The results in
Fig. 14 which plot the rst harmonic of the BPFO using both processing methods further show the merits of the proposed
TLSAE method. The envelope method provides little if any separation between a normal bearing and one with a smallest
level of outer race damage using the 2XBPFO feature; however, there is clear separation between these two conditions
using the TLSAE method. Furthermore, there is considerable less variation and a more consistent 2XBPFO feature value
using the synchronous average envelope method for the bearing with the largest outer race damage.
Both the proposed synchronous average and the traditional envelope spectrum are suitable signal processing
techniques for diagnosing and assessing the bearing condition. The synchronous average method did offer improvement
in that the calculated feature values had less variation. A more consistent and accurate estimation of the bearing condition
would provide better inputs for classication and trending algorithms for diagnosing and predicting bearing failure. Also,
some of the features, in particular the rst harmonic of the BPFO, had much more separation and discrimination ability
using the TLSAE technique when compared with the traditional bearing envelope analysis method.
6. Conclusions
The development of the tachometer-less synchronously averaged envelope (TLSAE) method and the comparison of this
method to other baseline signal processing methods provided some valuable insight for detecting the different levels of
outer race bearing damage. With regard to features that are indicative of the overall health state, using the kurtogram and
calculating the energy of the ltered signal provide a robust indicator that could describe all levels of outer race damage.
The RMS of the time signal was also monotonic with the bearing damage level but provided less discrimination between a
normal bearing and one with the smallest level of scratch. Features from the empirical mode decomposition can only
be used as an overall health indicator due to its limited frequency resolution; also many of the energy levels of the
decomposed signals were not necessarily monotonically increasing with outer race bearing damage.
The bearing fault features taken from the FFT of the time signal are not suitable for detecting the early levels of damage;
however, the use of the envelope method or the TLSAE method provides a way for early detection of bearing degradation
using the magnitude at particular bearing fault frequencies. The TLSAE method offered some improvement when
compared with the envelope method; less variation in the calculated feature values and also in certain features more
separation between the normal and smallest level of induced bearing damage. This increased level of discrimination was
clearly observed for the magnitude of the rst harmonic of the outer race ball pass frequency when comparing the TLSAE
2
X

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180 160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0
0.25
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0.1
0.05
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NORMAL BEARING 1
NORMAL BEARING 2
NORMAL BEARING 3
SCRATCH LEVEL 1
SCRATCH LEVEL 2
SCRATCH LEVEL 3
SAMPLE #
2
X

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180 160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0
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NORMAL BEARING 1
NORMAL BEARING 2
NORMAL BEARING 3
SCRATCH LEVEL 1
SCRATCH LEVEL 2
SCRATCH LEVEL 3
SAMPLE #
Fig. 14. Comparing results from 2X BPFO feature: (a) envelope spectrum and (b) tachometer-less synchronously averaged envelope (TLSAE) method.
D. Siegel et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 29 (2012) 362376 375
and envelope method. Less variation in the calculated features provides a better input for classication or trending
algorithms which highlight the potential merits of the TLSAE method. Future work plans to conduct a simulation study and
additional experimental testing to further understand the limitations of the TLSAE method with regard to speed
uctuations and periodic variability of the bearing impulses due to slippage. Run to failure testing is also considered for
future work in order to evaluate whether this processing method provides a set of indicators that increase monotonically
from spall initiation to bearing failure.
Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the funding provided by TechSolve Inc under Smart Machine Platform Initiative
(SMPI) under award number (COES000102). The authors also appreciate TechSolve Inc. for supporting and guiding this
research project and providing the experimental test-bed.
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