Combining blind separation and cyclostationary techniques for monitoring distributed wear in gearbox rolling bearings

This work seeks to study the potential effectiveness of the Blind Signal Extraction (BSE) as a pre-processing tool for the detection of distributed faults in rolling bearings. In the literature, most of the authors focus their attention on the detection of incipient localized defects. In that case, classical techniques (i.e. envelope analysis) are robust in recognizing the presence of the fault and its characteristic frequency. However, when the fault grows, the classical approach fails, due to the change of the fault signature. De facto, in this case the signal does not contain impulses at the fault characteristic frequency, but more complex components with strong non-stationary contents. Moreover, signals acquired from complex machines often contain contributions from several different components as well as noise; thus the fault signature can be hidden in the complex system vibration. Therefore, pre-processing tools are needed in order to extract the bearing signature, from the raw system vibration. In this paper the authors focalize their attention on the application of the BSE in order to extract the bearing signature from the raw vibration of mechanical systems. The effectiveness and sensitivity of BSE is here exploited on the basis of both simulated and real signals. Among different procedures for the BSE computation, the Reduced-Rank Cyclic Regression algorithm (RRCR) is used. Firstly a simulated signal including the effect of gear meshing as well as a localized fault in bearings is introduced in order to tune the parameters of the RRCR. Next, two different real cases are considered, a bearing test-rig as an example of simple machine and a gearbox test-rig as an example of complex machine. In both examples, the bearings were degreased in order to accelerate the wear process. The BSE is compared with the usual pre-processing technique for the analysis of cyclostationary signals, i.e. the extraction of the residual signal. The fault detection is carried out by the computation of the Integrated Cyclic Modulation Spectrum on the extracted signals. The results indicate that the extracted signals via BSE clearly highlight the distributed fault signature, in particular both the appearance of the faults as well as their development are detected, whilst noise still hides fault grow in the residual signals.

Research on Blind Signal Extraction Based on Normalized Kurtosis

Blind source extraction (BSE) is a promising technique to solve signal mixture problems while only one or a few source signals are desired. In biomedical applications, one often knows certain prior information about a desired source signal in advance. In this paper, we explore specific prior information as a constrained condition so as to develop a flexible BSE algorithm. One can extract a desired source signal while its normalized kurtosis range is known in advance. Computer simulations on biomedical signals confirm the validity of the proposed algorithm.

Study on Signals Processing in State Detection of Tunnel Excavation Equipment's Cutter Head

In the period of real time mechanical analysis and life style detection to the excavation tunnel equipment's cutter head, it is a necessity for the signals sensed by detection unit to be pretreatment processed. It closely concerns with the accuracy and validity of whole mechanical analysis results. By analyzing the features of all possible interference, this paper gives a study on signals initial processing applying method of digital filter and blind signal extraction. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme is effective enough to the mechanical analysis task.