Spectral negentropy based sidebands and demodulation analysis for planet bearing fault diagnosis

Planet bearing vibration signals are highly complex due to intricate kinematics (involving both revolution and spinning) and strong multiple modulations (including not only the fault induced amplitude modulation and frequency modulation, but also additional amplitude modulations due to load zone passing, time-varying vibration transfer path, and time-varying angle between the gear pair mesh lines of action and fault impact force vector), leading to difficulty in fault feature extraction. Rolling element bearing fault diagnosis essentially relies on detection of fault induced repetitive impulses carried by resonance vibration, but they are usually contaminated by noise and therefor are hard to be detected. This further adds complexity to planet bearing diagnostics. Spectral negentropy is able to reveal the frequency distribution of repetitive transients, thus providing an approach to identify the optimal frequency band of a filter for separating repetitive impulses. In this paper, we find the informative frequency band (including the center frequency and bandwidth) of bearing fault induced repetitive impulses using the spectral negentropy based infogram. In Fourier spectrum, we identify planet bearing faults according to sideband characteristics around the center frequency. For demodulation analysis, we filter out the sensitive component based on the informative frequency band revealed by the infogram. In amplitude demodulated spectrum (squared envelope spectrum) of the sensitive component, we diagnose planet bearing faults by matching the present peaks with the theoretical fault characteristic frequencies. We further decompose the sensitive component into mono-component intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) to estimate their instantaneous frequencies, and select a sensitive IMF with an instantaneous frequency fluctuating around the center frequency for frequency demodulation analysis. In the frequency demodulated spectrum (Fourier spectrum of instantaneous frequency) of selected IMF, we discern planet bearing fault reasons according to the present peaks. The proposed spectral negentropy infogram based spectrum and demodulation analysis method is illustrated via a numerical simulated signal analysis. Considering the unique load bearing feature of planet bearings, experimental validations under both no-load and loading conditions are done to verify the derived fault symptoms and the proposed method. The localized faults on outer race, rolling element and inner race are successfully diagnosed.