Time domain cyclostationarity signal-processing tools

This paper proposes four different time-domain tools to estimate first-order time cyclostationary signals without the need of a keyphasor signal. Applied to gearbox signals, these tacho-less methods appear intuitively simple, offer user-friendly graphic interfaces to visualize a pattern and allow the retrieval and removal of the selected cyclostationarity components in order to process higher-order spectra. Two of these tools can deal with time-varying operating conditions since they use an adaptive resampled signal driven by the vibration signal itself for order tracking. Three coherency indicators are proposed, one for every sample of the time pattern, one for each impact (tooth shock) observed in the gear mesh pattern, and one for the whole pattern. These indicators are used to detect a cyclostationarity and analyze the pattern repeatability. A gear mesh graph is also proposed to illustrate the cyclostationarity in 3D.