Vibration diagnostics of rolling bearings by novel nonlinear non-stationary wavelet bicoherence technology

•Novel wavelet bicoherence technology is proposed first time for bearing diagnosis.•Comprehensive experimental validation performed for early (1.2%) diagnosis of defect.•Novel method for extraction of wavelet bicoherence feature experimentally validated.•Novel wavelet based method for frequency band selection is experimentally validated.•Estimates of the probability of correct diagnosis are (94–100)% without false alarms.

Rolling element bearings are widely used in almost all complex engineering structures. Failure of bearings could lead to a failure of the whole structure. Therefore, early damage diagnosis of bearings is of great importance for the structural integrity of the complex engineering structures.The novel nonlinear non-stationary wavelet bicoherence technology is applied for the first time in worldwide terms for rolling bearing condition monitoring.High effectiveness of early bearing diagnostics by the technology has been experimentally revealed, which has been further substantiated using the Fisher criterion.