Experimental study on condition monitoring of low speed bearings : time domain analysis

Abstract

In condition monitoring of low speed rolling element bearings (REBs), traditional techniques involving vibration acceleration may not be able to detect a growing fault due to the low impact energy generated by the relative motion of the components. This study presents an experimental evaluation for incipient fault detection of low speed REBs by using an acoustic emission (AE) sensor and an accelerometer. A low speed fault simulation test rig was developed to simulate common machine faults with shaft speeds as low as 10rpm under loading conditions. Tests were conducted on the rig with various seeded defect bearings. This study reveals the best frequency bandwidth and suitable parameters for condition monitoring using AE signal for early detection of low speed bearing defects by means of statistical parameters in time domain.