Wheel-bearing fault diagnosis of trains using empirical wavelet transform

• A novel method is employed for the diagnosis of wheel bearings fault.
• Empirical wavelet transform (EWT) is an adaptive analysis method.
• EWT provides a good performance in the detection of wheel-bearing fault.

Rolling bearings are used widely as wheel bearing in trains. Fault detection of the wheel-bearing is of great significance to maintain the safety and comfort of train. Vibration signal analysis is the most popular technique that is used for rolling element bearing monitoring, however, the application of vibration signal analysis for wheel bearings is quite limited in practice. In this paper, a novel method called empirical wavelet transform (EWT) is used for the vibration signal analysis and fault diagnosis of wheel-bearing. The EWT method combines the classic wavelet with the empirical mode decomposition, which is suitable for the non-stationary vibration signals. The effectiveness of the method is validated using both simulated signals and the real wheel-bearing vibration signals. The results show that the EWT provides a good performance in the detection of outer race fault, roller fault, and the compound fault of outer race and roller.