Vibration Signature of Defected Gear Tooth

Using Spectral Analysis

Spectra Quest, Inc.
8201 Hermitage Road, Richmond, VA 23228
(804) 261-3300
www.spectraquest.com
August, 2007
Abstract
The vibration signature of gear tooth seeded fault has been studied in this tech note. Experiments
were carried out on Spectra Quests Gear box Dynamics Simulator (GDS). The test rig simulates a
two-stage parallel gear transmission. The input gear in the gearbox was intentionally faulted with
increasing severity level. For each gear configuration, tests were conducted with and without
loading applied by a magnetic brake. The experimental results show that due to the impact caused
by the faulted tooth, strong sidebands arise around the meshing frequency in the spectra. At high
severity level, the amplitudes of the sidebands may be even higher than that of the meshing
frequency components.
1. INTRODUCTION
Gearboxes are very commonly used in industry as well as in vehicles. During their extended
service lifetimes, gear teeth will inevitably be worn, chipped, or even missing under high load.
Therefore effective diagnostic methods are required in order to enhance the reliability of the entire
machine before any unexpected catastrophic consequences occur. The vibration-based techniques
are the most widely used since it is easy to obtain the acceleration signals using accelerometers.
The gear diagnostic parameters include RMS value, crest factor, kurtosis, energy ratio, and other
metrics [1]. They are all statistical methods. Advanced techniques, such as joint time-frequency
analysis, wavelet, and neural networks, have been successfully applied to the gear fault diagnostics.
A previous tech note on the gear fault detection, published by Spectra Quest, was performed on
the MFS [2]. That tech note studied the vibration signatures of one-stage gear transmission with
faulted tooth, and the relationship between the fault severity and the vibration signals in both the
time and frequency domains. It is observed that when a faulted bevel gear tooth enters meshing, it
produces an impulse-like signal in the time domain and the amplitude of the impulse increase with
the damage. In the frequency domain the amplitudes of pinion sidebands also increase with the
severity level.
Compared to the previous tech notes, the experiments in this article were conducted on Spectra
Quests Gearbox Dynamics Simulator (GDS), as shown in Fig. 1. Instead of a one-stage
transmission, a two-stage transmission with spur gears was investigated. The objective of these
experiments is to relate the development of the frequency component changes to the severity level.
The GDS is a specially designed platform for studying signatures of common gearing faults. Spur
or helical gears can be fitted into a two-stage parallel shaft design. The gearbox is driven by a 3
HP motor with a speed range of 0~3600 rpm. The inverter can be programmed for higher speeds,

but care must be exercised to assure proper lubrication and temperature control. Load can be
applied using the magnetic brake, which is also shown in Fig. 1. The loading force is controlled by
a current source. The modular design of the gearbox allows one to introduce various faults, such as
chipped, broken and cracked teeth, gear eccentricity, and worn gear, either individually or jointly
in a totally controlled environment. The gears can be set up at different locations along the shaft in
order to alter system stiffness and make room for additional devices. The GDS is also a test bed
for analyses in gear noise, loading effects, and fault diagnosis techniques.

Figure 1. Gearbox dynamics simulator and the magnetic brake.

2. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
Figure 2 illustrate a picture take for the inside of the gearbox and a schematic of the two-stage
parallel gearbox layout. The numbers shown in the figure are tooth number of the gears. Since this
is a two-stage transmission, there are two meshing frequencies, named fm1 and fm2:
f m1 = 24 f i ,
24
f m 2 = fi 36 ,
60

(1a)

(1b)

where fi is the input shaft speed.

Four gears were tested in this study: (1) a health gear, (2) a small-chipped gear, (3) a large-chipped
gear, and (4) a missing-tooth gear. All the defected gears are the input gear (the 24-tooth one).
Figure 3 shows the three defected gears. For gear configuration, two loading conditions, with and
without load, were tested. The load provide by the brake was controlled by a current source. For
each loaded case, the current was set up to 0.16 A.

intermediate shaft

input shaft

(a)

(a)

60

36

24

48

output shaft

(b)
Figure 2. Two-stage parallel gear transmission.

(b)

(c)

Figure 3. Faulted gears. (a) Small chipped tooth, (b) large chipped tooth, (c) missing tooth.
The rotating speed set on the speed inverter was kept unchanged (3600 rpm, or 60 Hz). The actual
speed, however, is always smaller than the inverter speed because of the operation principle of an
induction motor. The rotating speed is also a function of load. High load will reduce the speed. So
the real speeds are less then 3600 rpm with tolerable small variations during the running.
For each test, five transducers were mounted on
the simulator: one optical tachometer to measure
the rotating speed of the main shaft, one
accelerometer
on
each
bearing,
one
accelerometer on top of the gearbox, and one
accelerometer on the motor.
Data acquisition was performed using
SpectraQuests front-end, SpectraPad shown in
Fig. 4, connected to a laptop through a PCMCIA
port. The sampling rate of all the tests were 51.2
kSamples/second, or the bandwidth is 20 kHz.
The number of spectral lines was 6400. And 64
data blocks were collected for each test.

Figure 4. SpectraPad data acquisition front-end.

3. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

3.1 Baseline
As discussed above, the two-stage gear transmission possesses two meshing frequencies. When
the input shaft speed is a little bit less than 60 Hz, fm1 and fm2 are roughly 1425 Hz and 854 Hz,
respectively. Figure 5 shows the spectra of the acceleration signal obtained from the gearbox of
the two running conditions. Each plot depicts the two meshing frequencies with high amplitudes.
The second and third harmonics of the two meshing frequencies can also be seen even though they
are comparatively small.
Figure 5 also shows the overall RMS vibration levels. It can obviously be seen that the vibration
level in Fig. 5 (b) is higher than that in Fig. 5 (a) because of the effect of loading. In addition to the
overall vibration level increase, since the load was applied on the output side, the amplitude
increase of fm2 is more pronounced than that of fm1.
Both plots also show another high-amplitude frequency content at 2278 Hz. However, this is not a
multiple of any meshing frequency. Further experiments running at different speeds need to be
done in order to identify this content as rotating-related or structural-related frequency.

(a)
(b)
Figure 5. Gearbox acceleration spectra of baseline data. (a) without load, (b) with load.
3.2 Test with Small Chipped Tooth
A 24-tooth gear with a small chip was used in this test. Figure 6 shows the spectra of the gearbox
acceleration data of the two runs with and without load. Compared to the spectra shown in Fig. 5,
it can be seen that in both Fig. 6 (a) and (b), only the fm2 component is dominant. The fm1 is barely
seen. However, the second harmonics of the two meshing frequencies are detected in the spectra.
1725.62 Hz is the second harmonic of fm2, and 2846.87 Hz is the second harmonic of fm1.

(a)

(b)

Figure 6. Gearbox acceleration spectra of Test 6. (a) without load, (b) with load.

Figure 7. Sideband presented about the second meshing frequency.

The faulted gear produces an impact every revolution which causes amplitude modulation on other
frequency contents in the time signals. The amplitude modulation leads to sidebands in the spectra
[3]. By zooming into the meshing frequency region, the sidebands can be clearly seen. Figure 7
shows the zoomed FFT-spectrum of Fig. 6 (a) from 500 Hz to 1200 Hz. Two strong sidebands are
presented at 737.50 Hz and 796.87 Hz. The frequency interval is 59.37 Hz, exactly same as the
rotating speed of the input shaft. This is because the defected gear is on the input shaft. Therefore
the frequency of the amplitude modulation is the same as the input shaft speed. If we zoom into
the same frequency region of Fig. 6 (b), the same sidebands can be seen, even though the meshing
frequency is more pronounced due to the load.

3.3 Test with Large Chipped Tooth

A 24-tooth gear with a large chip was used in this test. Figure 8 shows the spectra of the gearbox
acceleration data of the two runs with and without load. It can be seen that the fm2 component and
its second harmonic are dominant in the spectra. Strong sidebands are presented about both
components. Again, the overall vibration level of the loaded case is higher.

(a)
(b)
Figure 8. Gearbox acceleration spectra of Test 7. (a) without load, (b) with load.

(a)
(b)
Figure 9. Gearbox acceleration spectra of Test 5. (a) without load, (b) with load.

3.4 Test with Missing Tooth

This is the most severe fault of all the tests. The input gear has a missing tooth. In Fig. 9 (a) it can
be seen that the amplitude of sidebands at 796.87 Hz and 737.5 Hz are even higher than that of the
meshing frequency which possesses a higher amplitude than all the previous cases. Even in the
loaded condition, the sidebands mentioned above have higher amplitudes than all the other
rotation-related components except the fm2 component itself. Figures 10 and 11 illustrate the
zoomed FFT-spectra of the unloaded case around fm2 and 2fm1. Figure 11 also shows that the
amplitude of the sideband (2918.75 Hz) has higher amplitude than the 2fm1 component (2859.37
Hz).
fm2 - fi
fm2 -2fi
fm2

Figure 10. Sidebands about fm2.

2fm1

2fm1 + fi

2fm1 + 2fi

Figure 11. Sidebands about the 2fm1.

CONCLUSIONS

Experiments were conducted on Gearbox Dynamics Simulator to investigate the gear fault
diagnosis technique. From both the theoretical prediction and experimental results, the following
conclusions can be drawn. (1) Load affects the overall vibration level as well as the meshing

frequency amplitudes significantly. (2) Chipped tooth and missing tooth generate an impact in
every revolution. Therefore, sidebands around the meshing frequencies appear. The frequency
interval is the input shaft speed. (3) The severity level of the chip affects the sideband amplitudes.
In some cases, the amplitudes of the sidebands are even higher than that of the meshing frequency
component, which is quite different than the behavior of a health gear.
Reference
[1] http://mfpt.org/Archive%20Old%20Pages/mfpt_geardiagnosticparam.html
[2] Analyzing Gearbox Degradation Using Time-Frequency Signature Analysis, Spectra Quest
Tech Note, March 2006.
[3] Vibration Signal Analysis of Fan Rotors, Spectra Quest Tech Note, March 2007.
All tech notes are available at www.spectraquest.com/tech/index.html.