Proceedings of the International Conference on Innovations in Design and Manufacturing December 5-7, 2012, Jabalpur, India

DETECTIONOF LOCALFAULTSIN ROTATINGMACHINES

Author1 Author2 Mechanical Engineering Discipline PDPM Indian Institute of Information Technology, Design and Manufacturing Jabalpur Jabalpur-482005, Madhya Pradesh, INDIA. ABSTRACT Gears are very common machine elements, which are used to transmit power. Monitoring the condition of large gearboxes in operating industries has attracted increasing interest in recent years owing to the need for decreasing the downtime on production machinery and for reducing the extent of secondary damage caused by failures. Vibration monitoring has been widely reported as being a useful technique for the diagnosis of the condition of rotating machines. This paper considers the fourth normalized statistical moment, kurtosis value for detection and diagnosis of faults in gearbox. Experimental studies conducted on the gearbox include healthy gear, and faulty gear with gradual removal of tooth. Kurtosis values of raw vibration signals and discrete wavelet transform (DWT) based kurtosis values are considered in gear fault detection. Results show that DWT based kurtosis values serves as a good inspection tool to examine fault severity and it improves the ability of fault detection in a gear transmission system. 1 INTRODUCTION Monitoring the condition of large gearboxes in operating industries has attracted increasing interest in recent years owing to the need for decreasing the downtime on production machinery and for reducing the extent of secondary damage caused by failures. Typically, vibration signals collected from a gearbox have a low signal to noise ratio (SNR), especially when faults occurring in the gearbox start to propagate. Vibrations generated by large structural components and noises often mask fault-related vibration signals generated by the smaller gears making it difficult to identify the fault related features [1]. On the other hand, it is known that local faults in gearboxes cause impacts, as a result of which transient excitations may be observed in the vibration and acoustic signals. In the presence of growing local faults, the vibration and acoustic signals from gearboxes have nonstationary characteristics. The presence of a crack in one tooth introduces short duration changes in the vibration signal. On the contrary, distributed faults viz., geometrical imperfections and uniform wear on gear teeth surface introduce slow modification of the vibration signals. For advanced faults time domain technique may be sufficient to detect the damage, but the early detection of defects requires more sophisticated signal processing methods. The non-stationary nature of the signal suggests the case of time-frequency techniques, which makes it possible to look at the time evolution of the signal frequency content. Such methodologies exists in literature [2-13], authors have successfully applied Wavelet Transform technique for the detection of cracked teeth in gears. These researchers have used wavelet analysis to predict simulated faults on gear teeth. In the present work, experiments were carried out under accelerated test condition (to get gradual wear under controlled load) which results in partial lubrication and boundary lubrication conditions in gear teeth contact. A combination of lubricant film thickness and vibration signal analyses techniques has been used to detect and diagnose surface wear severity of spur gears. Experimental work presented in the literature postulated the advantage of wavelet transform in detection and diagnosis of simulated local faults in gears viz. crack at tooth root, partial tooth removal, adjacent tooth removal etc. Boulahbal et al. [2] considered both the amplitude and phase maps of wavelet transform in conjunction to assess the condition of an instrumented gear test rig. Their investigation shows the application of the continuous wavelet transform technique to detect developing fatigue cracks in gears. The technique excels in extracting transients, which are often indicators of incipient damage in geared systems. The cases studied include a healthy gear, one with a simulated crack and one with a simulated chipped tooth. The study reveals the results of both amplitude and phase wavelet maps used for positive assessment of a tooth condition. InnDeM 2012, xxx-yyy Paper: InnDeM-1234, http://inndem.iiitdmj.ac.in Author3

2 Dialpiaz et al. [3] carried out experimental studies on a power circulating testing machine composed of two identical single stage gear set units mounted back to back. Morlet wavelet was used in conjunction with conventional vibration techniques. Baydar and Ball [4] have conducted an experimental investigation which demonstrates the effectiveness of acoustic signal along with the vibration signal to detect various faults in a two stage gearbox. The results of acoustic signal analysis were compared with vibration signal analysis; it was found that acoustic signals are very effective for early detection of faults and may prove to be a powerful tool to indicate the various types of progressive faults in machine elements. Yoshida et al. [5] discussed the dynamic characteristics of the gear mesh due to change in tooth profile during the fatigue test using Gabor based wavelet transforms. The fatigue test of gear was done on a circulating gear testing machine. Dynamic tooth root strain was measured using a wire strain gauge which was bonded to the compression side of the tooth fillet of the gear. The vibration acceleration of the gearbox was detected by a piezo-electric pickup through an amplifier. The measurements on the test gear pair were conducted at regular intervals during the fatigue test. Experimental studies proved that WT of vibration signal and WT of dynamic tooth root strain to be very useful in diagnosing the condition of the gear transmission system when one tooth has failed. Sung et al. [6], on the basis on their practical observations, described the fault signals of a gear transmission system which have several salient features such as: transient nature of the signal (similar to an impulse), low energy due to defect and non-stationary nature. They used Daubechies wavelet as the mother wavelet to locate gear defects in a back to back gearbox operating with spur gears in which gears were worn naturally. The authors further demonstrated the advantages of multi resolution property of wavelet transform. A simulated system was employed for detecting the possible location of defects in the gearbox. Scalograms using Daubechies wavelets provided better accuracy in localizing the simulated impulses due to gear defects. Their studies confirmed that their approach might improve fault detection of a gear transmission system, especially when a faulty gear rotates at an angular speed close to that of other gears. Wang et al. [7] extended the experimental studies of Boulahbal et al. [2], including investigations on the sensitivity and robustness of the well accepted techniques viz., phase and amplitude demodulation, beta kurtosis and wavelet transform. Test cases comprised healthy, cracked, filed and chipped gears. Continuous wavelet transforms provided a good visual inspection tool especially when residual signals were used. Phase demodulation was found to be very sensitive to gear imperfections. Gao and Yan [8] implemented STFT followed by wavelet transform in bearing health monitoring. The effectiveness of both techniques in capturing transient features from time 2 varying signals, as well as realistic signals measured from the test setup, was examined. The short time Fourier transform, upon selection of appropriate window size was able to detect frequency shifts associated with bearing defect propagation. In contrast, WT was able to clearly identify the frequency shift associated with bearing defects. High order statistical values, such as skewness, impulse indicator, root mean square root, kurtosis and crest factor values of vibraton signals are calculated to obtain diagnostic information. The fourth normalized statistical moment (kurtosis) is a major diagnostic index and has been widely used for detection of faults in rotating machine elements such as gears and bearings. The main short coming of kurtosis value is its higher susceptibility to spurious effect of noise at high frequency. Hence, in some cases, the adverse effect of noise on the values of kurtosis is more than the benefit gained from the higher sensitivity of kurtosis to incipient faults [9]. In the present work, Kurtosis values of raw vibration signals and discrete wavelet transform (DWT) based kurtosis values are considered in gear fault detection. Results obtained from experimental investigations offer good potential for the early detection of faults in geared system. 2 DISCRETEWAVELETTRANSFORM The wavelet transform of a continuous time signal, x(t), can be obtained by considering discrete values of the dilation and translation parameters, a and b. A natural way to sample the parameters a and b is to use a logarithmic discretization of the a scale and link this, in turn, to the size of steps taken between b locations. To link b to a, the discrete steps to each location b is moved, which are proportional to the a scale. This kind of discretization of the wavelet has the form [14]:

m ,n (t ) =

m t nb0 a0 m m a0 a0

(1)

where the integers m and n control the wavelet dilation and translation respectively; a0 is a specified fixed dilation step parameter set at a value greater than 1, and b0 is the location parameter which must be greater than zero. The control parameters m and n are contained in the set of all integers, both positive and negative. It can be seen from the above equation that the size of the translation steps,

b = b0 a m , is directly proportional to the wavelet scale, 0

m a0 .

The wavelet transform of a continuous signal, x(t), using discrete wavelets of the form of Eq. (1) is then

Wm ,n =

x(t ) a

m 2 0

m ( a0 t nb0 ) dt

(2)

which can also be expressed as the inner product InnDeM 2012, xxx-yyy Paper: InnDeM-1234, http://inndem.iiitdmj.ac.in

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Wm , n = x, m ,n

(3)

where, Wm,n are the discrete wavelet transform values given on a scalelocation grid of index m, n. For the discrete wavelet transform, the values Wm,n are known as wavelet coefficients or detail coefficients. 3 EXPERIMENTALSETUPANDPROCEDURE Fig.1 shows the experimental setup. The setup consists of a 5 HP two stage helical gearbox. The gear box is driven by a 5.5 HP, 3-phase induction motor with a rated speed of 1440 rpm. The speed of the motor is controlled by an inverter drive and for the present study the motor is operated at 80 rpm. In other words the speed of the first stage of the gearbox is 80 rpm. With a step-up ratio of 1:15, the speed of the pinion shaft in the second stage of the gear box is 1200 rpm. Table 1 summarizes the specifications of the test rig. The pinion is connected to a D.C motor (which is used as generator) to generate 2 kW power, which is dissipated in a resistor bank. In the case of traditional dynamometer, additional torsional vibrations can occur due o torque fluctuations. This is avoided in this case by using D.C motor and resistor bank.

Tyre couplings are fitted between the electrical machines and gear box so that the backlash in the system can be restricted to the gears. The motor, gear box and generator are mounted on I-beams, which are anchored to a massive concrete block. A piezo-electric accelerometer B&K 4332 was studmounted to measure the vertical vibration signals generated on the bearing housing of pinion shaft. The accelerometer outputs were conditioned using B&K 2626 charge amplifier.

Table1 Details of helical gearbox First stage Number of teeth Speed of shafts Mesh frequency Step - up ratio Power Transmitted 44/13 80 rpm (input) 59 Hz 15 5 HP Second stage 73/16 1200 rpm (output) 320 Hz

Accelerometer Micro phone Inverter drive Two stage helical gearbox

Resistor bank

Three phase induction motor

DC motor

Coupling

Coupling

Fig. 1 Experimental setup of two stage helical gearbox

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4 Overhaul time of a new gear box is more than one year. It is very difficult to study the fault detection procedures without seeded fault trials. Local faults in a gear box can be classified into three categories. (a) surface wear spalling (b) cracked tooth and (c) loss of a part of tooth due to breakage of tooth at root or at a point on working tip (broken tooth or chipped tooth). There are different methods to simulate faults in gearboxes. The simplest approach is partial tooth removal. This simulates the damage due to breakage at a point on the working tip. This type of fault is common in many industrial applications [10, 11, 15 and 16]. In the present experiment, depthwise damage was induced on the helical gear tooth by grinding operation. Seven conditions of the gear were investigated such as: healthy gear and gear with six stages of depthwise tooth removal i.e. 0%, 10%, 20%, 40%, 60%, 80% and 100% tooth removal conditions across the tooth width. For all operating conditions both vibration and acoustic signals were acquired and recorded after proper signal conditioning. The acquired signals were decomposed using EMD method in MATLAB 6.5.

80 60 40 20 0 -20 -40 -60 -80 0

500 1000 1500 2000 T i m e (0.25 s) Fig. 2 Vibration signals in time domain for 100% tooth removal

4 RESULTSANDDISCUSSIONS In the present experiment, seven conditions of gear are investigated such as: healthy gear and gear with six stages of depth wise tooth removal i.e. 0%, 10%, 20%, 40%, 60%, 80% and 100% tooth removal conditions. Fig. 2 show vibration signals of 100% tooth removed case. The X-axis is time in seconds and Y-axis is acceleration in m/s2, incase of worn tooth increase in amplitudes are seen in the plot. Kurtosis values for unprocessed signals for seven operating conditions i.e. from healthy gear and increase in fault in the gear tooth (% of tooth removal) were calculated. Similarly kurtosis values of DWT db32 are calculated. These kurtosis values were compared with kurtosis values of unprocessed vibration signals. It can be seen from the plot that the kurtosis values of vibration signal increase from 3.4 to 9.5 where as the kurtosis values of DWT based kurtosis values 6 to 20. It is clear that the kurtosis values vibration signals fail to reveal the increase in fault severity, whereas a gradual increase in kurtosis values from 6 to 20 of db32 is observed for growing fault conditions. Hence, for vibration signals kurtosis values of mode db32 can be effectively used for gear fault diagnosis.

5 CONCLUDINGREMARKS Experimental investigations have been carried out on a two stage helical gear box to diagnose gear faults using vibration signals. Initially, conventional analysis of time domain vibration signals is carried out to extract kurtosis values. Comparatively, DWT based kurtosis values extracted from vibration signals provide good diagnostic information than that of Kurtosis values of unprocessed vibration signals. More investigations are required to study the effectiveness of the procedure discussed in the present work. It would be worthwhile to use this methodology on the other machine elements, viz., crank shaft of I.C engine, rolling element bearings, machine tool spindles etc. 6 REFERENCES [1] Wuxing, L., Tse, P.W., Guicai, Z. and Tielin, S., 2004, Classification of gear faults using cumulants and the radial basis function network, Mechanical Systems and Signal processing, Vol. 18, pp. 381-389. [2] Boulahbal, D., Golnaraghi, M.F. and Ismail F., 1999, Amplitude and phase wavelet maps for the detection of cracks in geared systems, Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing, Vol. 13(3), pp. 423-436. [3] Dialpiaz, G., Rivola, A. and Rubini, R., 2000, Effectiveness and sensitivity of vibration processing techniques for local fault detection in gears, Mechanical Systems and Signal processing, Vol. 14(3), pp. 387-412. [4] Baydar, N. and Ball, A., 2003, Detection and diagnosis of gear failure via vibration and acoustic signals using wavelet transform, Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing, Vol. 17(4), pp. 787-804. [5] Yoshida, A., Ohue, Y. and Ishikawa, H., 2000, Diagnosis of tooth surface failure by wavelet transform of dynamic characteristics, Tribology International, Vol. 33, pp. 273-279 4 InnDeM 2012, xxx-yyy Paper: InnDeM-1234, http://inndem.iiitdmj.ac.in

m/s

5 [6] Sung, C.K., Tai, H.M. and Chen, H.M., 2000, Locating defects of gear system by the technique of wavelet transform, Mechanism and Machine Theory, Vol. 35, pp. 1169-1182. [7] Wang, W.Q., Ismail, F. and Golnaraghi, M.F., 2001, Assessment of gear damage monitoring techniques using vibration measurements, Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing, Vol. 15(5), pp. 905-922. [8] Gao, R.X. and Yan, R., 2006, Non-stationary signal processing for bearing health monitoring, International Journal of Manufacturing Research, Vol. 1, pp. 18-40. [9] Ocak, H. and Loparo, K.A., 2005, HMM-Based Fault Detection and Diagnosis Scheme for Rolling Element Bearings, Journal of Vibration and Acoustics, Vol. 127(4), 299-306. [10] Staszewski, W.J., Worden, K. and Tomlinson, G.R., 1997, Time-frequency analysis in gearbox fault detection using the Wigner-ville distribution and pattern recognition, Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing, Vol. 11(5), pp. 673-692. [11] Yesilyurt, I., 2003, The application of the conditional moments analysis to gearbox fault detection - a comparative study using the spectrogram and scalogram, NDT&E International, Vol. 37 (4), pp. 309-320. [12] Gao, Q., Dwan, C., Fan, H., and Meng, Q., 2008, Rotating machine fault diagnosis using empirical mode decomposition, Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing, Vol. 22, pp. 1072-1081. [13] Kankar, P.K., Sharma, S.C. and Harsha, S.P., 2011, Fault diagnosis of ball bearings using continuous wavelet transform, Applied Soft Computing, Vol. 11(2), pp. 2300-2312. [14] Addison, P.S., 2002, Illustrated Wavelet Transform Handbook: Introductory Theory and Applications in Science, Engineering, Medicine and Finance, Institute of Physics Publishing, Bristol and Philadelphia. [15] Yesilyurt, I., 1997, Gearbox Fault Detection and Severity Assessment Using Vibration Analysis , Ph.D Thesis, University of Manchester, UK. [16] Loutridis, S.J., 2004, Damage detection in gear system using empirical mode decomposition, Engineering structures, Vol. 29, pp. 1883- 1941.

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