Bearing diagnosis using proximity probe and accelerometer

Employing multiple sensors that generate different physical parameters from the measured system to monitor its health increases the diagnosis reliability. In the present work, bearing diagnosis capabilities of proximity probes are explored by exploiting its advantages and alleviating its shortcomings using appropriate signal processing of the raw time domain data. A Time Synchronous Averaging based method is proposed for processing of the data acquired by proximity probes and its benefit is illustrated on test bearings. Simultaneous synchronous data is acquired with the help of proximity probes and accelerometer during a life test as the defect is naturally induced and progressed with time. The proximity probe is shown to perform better diagnosis for inner race defect compared to accelerometer due to a direct transmission path for this defect. The use of proximity probe can effectively supplement the information from accelerometer and improve the accuracy of bearing diagnosis.