A Bearing Fault Diagnosis Method Based on PAVME and MEDE

When rolling bearings have a local fault, the real bearing vibration signal related to the local fault is characterized by the properties of nonlinear and nonstationary. To extract the useful fault features from the collected nonlinear and nonstationary bearing vibration signals and improve diagnostic accuracy, this paper proposes a new bearing fault diagnosis method based on parameter adaptive variational mode extraction (PAVME) and multiscale envelope dispersion entropy (MEDE). Firstly, a new method hailed as parameter adaptive variational mode extraction (PAVME) is presented to process the collected original bearing vibration signal and obtain the frequency components related to bearing faults, where its two important parameters (i.e., the penalty factor and mode center-frequency) are automatically determined by whale optimization algorithm. Subsequently, based on the processed bearing vibration signal, an effective complexity evaluation approach named multiscale envelope dispersion entropy (MEDE) is calculated for conducting bearing fault feature extraction. Finally, the extracted fault features are fed into the k-nearest neighbor (KNN) to automatically identify different health conditions of rolling bearing. Case studies and contrastive analysis are performed to validate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method. Experimental results show that the proposed method can not only effectively extract bearing fault features, but also obtain a high identification accuracy for bearing fault patterns under single or variable speed.

An optimized variational mode extraction method for rolling bearing fault diagnosis

The fault feature signal of rolling bearing can be characterized as the narrow-band signal with a specific resonance frequency. Therefore, resonance demodulation analysis is a powerful damage detection technique of bearings. In addition to the fault feature signal, the measured vibration signals carry various interference components, and these interference components become a serious obstacle of fault feature extraction. Variational mode extraction is a novel signal analysis method designed to retrieve a specific signal component from the composite signal. Variational mode extraction is founded on a similar basis as variational mode decomposition, while it shows better accuracy and higher efficiency compared with variational mode decomposition. In this study, variational mode extraction is introduced to the resonance demodulation analysis of bearing fault. As the results of variational mode extraction analysis are greatly influenced by the choice of two parameters, that is, the balancing factor α and the initial guess of center frequency ωd, an optimized variational mode extraction method is further developed. First, a new fault information evaluation index for measuring the richness of fault characteristics of the signal, termed ensemble impulsiveness and cyclostationarity, is formulated. Second, the ensemble impulsiveness and cyclostationarity is used as the fitness function of particle swarm optimization to automatically determine the optimal values of α and ωd. Finally, the validity of optimized variational mode extraction method is verified by simulated and experimental analysis, and the superiority of optimized variational mode extraction method is highlighted through comparison with two other advanced resonance demodulation analysis approaches, that is, the improved kurtogram and infogram. The analysis results indicate that optimized variational mode extraction method has a powerful capability of resonance demodulation analysis.

A new fault diagnosis method based on adaptive spectrum mode extraction

Variational mode decomposition provides a feasible method for non-stationary signal analysis, but the method is still not adaptive, which greatly limits the wide application of the method. Therefore, an adaptive spectrum mode extraction method is proposed in this article. The proposed method is mainly composed of spectral segmentation, mode extraction, and feedback adjustment. In the spectral segmentation part, considering the lack of robustness of classical scale space in a strong noise environment, this article proposes a method of fault feature mapping, which solves over-decomposition of variational mode decomposition guided by classical scale space. In the mode extraction part, for insufficient self-adaptability of the single penalty factor in the variational mode decomposition method, this article proposes a method of spectral aggregation factor, which solves multiple penalty factors that conform to different intrinsic modal functions. In the feedback adjustment part, this article proposes the method of transboundary criterion, which makes the result of variational mode decomposition within a preset range. Finally, using dispersion entropy and kurtosis indicators, intrinsic modal function components containing fault frequencies are extracted for envelope spectrum analysis to extract fault characteristic frequencies. In order to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, the proposed method is applied to simulation signals and bearing fault signals. Comparing the decomposition results of different methods, the conclusion shows that the proposed method is more advantageous for the fault feature extraction of rolling bearings.