Tracking the damage level in rolling element bearings

Abstract

The diagnostics of rolling element bearings is normally performed in frequency domain using suitable signal processing techniques. The simplest and most used method is the Envelope Analysis, that is based on the identification of bearing damage frequency components in the Envelope Spectrum of vibration signal. The quantification of the bearing damage is a complex task requiring a suitable damage index, robust against variations of system operating conditions and external vibration sources and also simple to be evaluated in the case of a real-time application. In the paper, an algorithm for alarm signaling is described and applied to an experimental case of failure of an industrial rolling element bearing.