Measurement 90 (2016) 560–575

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Measurement
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/measurement

Gear crack detection using modified TSA and proposed fault indicators
for fluctuating speed conditions
Vikas Sharma, Anand Parey ⇑
Discipline of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Indore, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Fault diagnosis of gearbox at an early stage is very important to avoid catastrophic failures. Condition
Received 14 May 2015 indicators (CI) are used to quantify the level of vibration generated by the defected gears. A comprehen-
Received in revised form 21 March 2016 sive comparison of various CIs, i.e., RMS, kurtosis, crest factor, FM0, FM4, M6A, NB4, energy ratio, NA4,
Accepted 27 April 2016
energy operator and two new proposed condition indicators (PS-I and PS-II), have been performed for
Available online 7 May 2016
no crack, initial crack and advanced crack for different fluctuating profiles of input speed. This compar-
ative analysis shows the responsiveness of indicators towards crack detection. Limited speed fluctuations
Keywords:
and instantaneous high speed fluctuations are considered. Results suggest that newly proposed condition
Fluctuating speed
Time synchronous averaging
indicators are more robust, stable and effective towards crack detection under fluctuating profiles of
Gear crack speed. A modified time synchronous averaging (MTSA) is also proposed to increase signal-to-noise ratio
Condition indicators (SNR).
Signal-to-noise ratio Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction limited speed fluctuation. Jafarizadeh et al. [18] proposed denois-

Vibration based fault detection techniques have been used for
about two and a half decades, to study premature failures appear-
ing in gearbox [1,2]. Basically, vibration signal of every gearbox is a
compound signal which consists of shaft frequency and its har-
monics, tooth meshing frequency and its harmonics, fault tran-
sients and noise. Broadly, vibration analysis on the basis of time
domain techniques [3–5], frequency domain techniques [6–8]
and time–frequency techniques [9–11] are used to perform fault
detection of rotating machines. Since, the information of the defect
is masked by noise, so an appropriate signal denoising technique is
also required to filter the noise thereby highlighting the fault
[12,13]. Time synchronous averaging (TSA) proposed by McFadden
[14] is capable of removing background noise, thereby leaving a
more accurate estimate of the vibration signal of the component
of interest [15].
TSA have been applied to gear fault diagnosis by many research-
ers [16–22]. So far, proposed methods of TSA are applicable to syn-
chronous signals, whereas, gearbox signals are asynchronous in
real-time environment. TSA fails to diagnose faults at fluctuating
speeds. Bonnardot et al. [16] proposed a method for resampling
of vibration signal by using interpolation in angular domain for a
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: phd1301103010@iiti.ac.in (V. Sharma), anandp@iiti.ac.in
(A. Parey).
ing method on the basis of TSA for asynchronous speed in associa-
tion with wavelet based filtering for feature extraction and
diagnosed various local gear damages. Ahamed et al. [21] proposed
noise removal by using multiple-pulse individually rescaled-time
synchronous averaging (MIR-TSA) technique for fluctuating input
speed.
Additionally, condition indicators (CI) are used to quantify the
level (in order to notice an incipient fault which may be of low
severity) of vibrations generated because of appearing fault phe-
nomenon [23–28]. By means of these indicators some fault modes
such as pitting crack and wear has been observed in gears. More-
over, it has been shown that estimation of gear health using
RMS, kurtosis, FM4 and NB4 of TSA signal provides alarm about
incipient fault comparatively faster than raw signal [29,4,30–33]
as their value increases more than nominal value which indicates
presence of fault.
In this paper a modified TSA (MTSA) technique using speed
based resampling and cubic spline interpolation is proposed to fil-
ter out noise. Additionally, for fault detection prospects two CIs are
proposed. Comparative analysis of all CIs is also conducted to get
an idea of sensitivity of CIs towards crack detection. A crack is sim-
ulated on pinion tooth root as suggested by Pandya and Parey
[34,35]. The experimental setup of drivetrain diagnostic simulator
is briefly introduced. Experimental investigation for the cracked
pinion under different fluctuating profiles of speed and crack spec-
ification is demonstrated in later sections. Performance evaluation

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.measurement.2016.04.076
0263-2241/Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 V. Sharma, A. Parey / Measurement 90 (2016) 560–575
of CIs is drawn for both limited speed and instantaneous high
speed fluctuations. At the end, results of the present study are pre-
sented and concluded.
2. Proposed modified TSA
2.1. Classical time synchronous averaging
The averaging technique is typically used to make vibration sig-
nal synchronous with respect to time (revolution). Let, the raw
vibration signal is presented as a continuous signal x(t), then the
linear averaging operation is given by:

X
1 N1
xðtÞ ¼ xðt  nTÞ
N n¼0
where T is rotational period and N is number of averages. Concept of
time synchronous averaging is shown in Fig. 1.
2.2. M-TSA
For time averaging of the signal, every tachometer pulse or
every revolution is required to be of equal duration, i.e., the revo-
lutions should match each other, but the duration if every revolu-
tion varies because of fluctuating input speed conditions. To make
all the revolutions of the same size, there is a need to modify the
actual signal without the loss of information. A speed based,
resampling scheme to resize every revolution so as to convert
the asynchronous signal into a synchronous signal has been pro-
posed here in Fig. 2. A more illustrative description of proposed
TSA algorithm for fluctuating speed with contrast to basic TSA
method is shown in Fig. 3. We have considered single pulse per
revolution and the tachometer is mounted at the input end, acquir-
ing and counting the revolution of the input shaft. Interpolation
has been performed on the time-domain vibration signal of gear;
tachometer signal has not been interpolated.
2.2.1. Resampling scheme and quantization
Considering fluctuations, let the speed of first revolution (x1) is
selected as the base speed. Then, the extra samples needed in the
subsequent revolution (xi), can be calculated by a resampling
scheme as mentioned in is calculated as below:
ðtotal number of samples after resamplesÞ
f s1 ¼
ðtotal number of samples of original signalÞ
 original sampling rate
xi
¼ ð2Þ
x1  t s
Fig. 1. Time synchronous averaging concept.
561
where ts is the existing sample time of the raw signal, and fs1 is the
revised sampling rate for the new resampled signal. For example;
let the sample rate be 1000 samples/s and if the speed of shaft fluc-
tuates around 5 Hz. Then, let us assume that for every revolution
samples be 990, 922, 1030, 760, 640, 1020 and 803 because of fluc-
tuation in speeds. Now for every shaft revolutions, all the samples
are resampled using Eq. (2). All the samples are resampled w.r.t.
the number of samples of 1st revolution i.e., 990 as explained
below:
Therefore, using Eq. (2)
6930
f s1 ¼  1000 ¼ 1124:08 samples=s
6165
This shows that with proposed method, sampling rate also
ð1Þ
increases. This process will make every part of signal nearly syn-
chronous to each other for every revolution. With this, sample rate
of acquired vibration signal can be changed depending upon the
fluctuations. Both upsampling and downsampling can be done at
a same time, which is a limitation of conventional TSA. Higher
sampling rates are possible after resampling, even if the data
acquisition rate is low. Later, for the estimation of amplitude of
re-sampled samples which are of discrete nature; a cubic-spline
interpolation is used for quantizing the new developed samples
(see Table 1).
The reason for preferring cubic spline has been explained by
considering Fig. 4. Now, let points 1, 2, 3 be linearly interpolated,
they will join the consecutive samples by a straight line (green
color) and signal will lose its smoothness and continuity, which
will result in different values of amplitude. So, for accurate estima-
tion of amplitude a cubic spline (red color) interpolation can be
used. It can be observed that the cubic spline interpolated signal
has much closeness to the actual one. Afterward, the basic TSA
can be applied to synchronous signal for further analysis of signal.
Now with this, better filtering of noise can be achieved for fluctu-
ating profiles of speed. McFadden has also drawn attention
towards the use of high order interpolation technique after resam-
pling of vibration signal and has recommended [36]. If linear
proves insufficient, cubic interpolation method can be used negoti-
ating the difference in processing time [37].
3. Proposed condition indicator
3.1. Existing CI
3.1.1. RMS
It signifies the energy content within signal w.r.t. time. The root
mean square (RMS) is defined as the square root of the mean of the
sum of the squares of signal samples [33]and is given by
562 V. Sharma, A. Parey / Measurement 90 (2016) 560–575

Vibration Anti-aliasing Pre-processed Data Resampling

Signal Filtering Vibration Signal Acquisition

M-TSA
Reference Signal Amplitude estimation using
(Tacho signal) cubic spline interpolation

Existing Condition
Indicators
Fault Alarm and
Proposed Condition
Indicator

Fig. 2. Scheme of proposed methodology.

TSA algorithm Proposed TSA algorithm for

fluctuating speed
Set TSA length for every revolution
Set TSA length w.r.t first revolution
For i=1: n (number
of tachopulses For i=1: n (number
of tachopulses)

Segmenting vibration signal

w.r.t. every tachopulse into m
( )
Resampling vibration signal
data points;
w.r.t. first tachopulse using
TSA=zeros (1, m) equation (2)

r= number of samples/ rev

TSA=TSA+m =

TSA=TSA/n TSA=TSA/n
f=FFT (TSA) f=FFT (TSA)

Fig. 3. Conventional TSA and proposed TSA algorithm.

Table 1
Number of samples before and after resampling.

Revolution Rev #1 Rev#2 Rev#3 Rev#4 Rev#5 Rev#6 Rev#7 Total samples
Samples acquired per revolution 990 922 1030 760 640 1020 803 6165
Samples after resampling 990 990 990 990 990 990 990 6930

rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
1 hX N i
RMSx ¼ i¼1 i
ðx Þ2 ð3Þ
N
where x is the original sampled time signal, N is the number of sam-
ples and i is the sample index.

3.1.2. Kurtosis
It is the fourth order moment normalized by the square of vari-
ance of a signal x and gives a measure of the peakedness of the sig-
nal [33]. It is given by
P
N Ni¼1 ðxi 
xÞ4
K¼ 2 ð4Þ
PN

2
i¼1 ðxi  xÞ

For a healthy gear vibration signal, kurtosis is approximately 3.

3.1.3. Crest factor

The crest factor (CF) is defined as the ratio of maximum positive
Fig. 4. Amplitude estimation using interpolation after resampling scheme. peak value of the signal x to RMSx [33]and is given by
 V. Sharma, A. Parey / Measurement 90 (2016) 560–575 563

x0—pk 3.1.9. Energy Operator (EOP)

CF ¼ ð5Þ
rmsx An impulse in time averaged vibration signal initiated by dam-
where pk is the sample for the maximum positive peak of the signal aged gear tooth supported by energy operator, thus allowing the
and x0–pk is the value of x at pk. impulse to be more easily detected [38].

P
3.1.4. Zero order figure of merit (FM0) N Ni¼1 ðrei  reÞ4
EOP ¼  2 ð11Þ
It is an indicator of major faults in a gear mesh [33]. Changes in PN 2
i¼1 ðrei  reÞ
the meshing pattern can be noticed by comparing the maximum
peak-to-peak amplitude of the signal to the sum of the amplitude
of the mesh frequencies and their harmonics. It is given by where rei equals x2i — xi1 xiþ1 and it is the ith measurement of the
resulting signal re, and re is the average of the resulting signal.
PPx EOP is developed by first calculating the value x2i — xi1 xiþ1 for
FM0 ¼ PH ð6Þ
every point xi (i = 1, . . ., N), of the signal. At the end points, the signal
N¼0 P N
is assumed to be a continuous loop. The energy operator is then
where PPx is the maximum peak-to-peak amplitude of the signal x, computed by taking the kurtosis of the resulting signal.
PN is the amplitude of the Nth harmonic and H is the total number of
harmonics in the frequency spectrum. 3.1.10. NA4
It was developed as a general fault indicator reacting to both
damage and continuous growth of the fault [40]. The quasi-
3.1.5. Fourth order figure of merit (FM4)
normalized kurtosis of the residual signal is calculated by obtain-
It was designed to boost FM0 by detecting faults isolated to only
ing a ratio of fourth moment of the residual signal to the square
a finite number of gear teeth [32]. This is done by first constructing
of its run time averaged variance. The mean variance is the average
the difference signal d and then normalized kurtosis of d is then
value of the variance of all earlier data records in the run ensemble.
computed as
NA4 is given as
P  P
N Ni¼1 di  d
4 N Ni¼1 ðr iM 
r M Þ4
NA4ðMÞ ¼  ð12Þ
FM4 ¼ 
PN 2 ð7Þ PM PN 2
2

2 1
i¼1 ðr ij  r j Þ
i¼1 ðdi  dÞ M j¼1

where
r is the mean of the residual signal, N is the total number of

where d
is the mean of the difference signal, and N is the total num- data points in the time signal, M is the number of the current time
ber of data points in the time signal. signal, and j is the index of the time signal in the run ensemble.

3.1.6. M6A 3.2. Feature extraction by proposed condition indicators using residual
The fundamental idea is the same as that of FM4, only the signal
moment is normalized by the cube of the variance. However, it is
expected that M6A will be more sensitive to peaks in the difference 3.2.1. Proposed condition indicator I (PS-I)
signal because of using sixth moment. M6A is given as Since, the residual signal is without the gearmesh frequency
and their harmonics, but contains modulation due to presence of
P
6 fault frequencies, sidebands (higher and lower order) which are
N2 Ni¼1 ðdi  dÞ
M6A ¼  3 ð8Þ very much crucial to highlight the fault appearing phenomenon.
PN
2
i¼1 ðdi  dÞ However, if the noise content in the signal is high, residual signal
may not highlight the fault, although some clues of fault will also
be, present in it. So on the basis of residual signal an indicator men-
3.1.7. NB4 tioned below is suggested for identifying the fault.
It was developed in 1994 by Zakrajsek et al. [30] to indicate RMSresidual
localized gear tooth fault. The hypothesis behind NB4 is that, fault PS-I ¼ ð13Þ
RMSregular
within a few teeth will create transient load fluctuations dissimilar
to those load fluctuations caused by healthy teeth and this can be where RMSresidual is the RMS of residual signal and RMSregular is the
observed in the envelope of the signal. NB4 uses the quasi- rms of regular signal containing all the components. Since a gear
normalized kurtosis of the envelope of the signal bandpass filtered crack produces high impulses in the system, due to which the
about the mesh frequency. The envelope, s(t) is computed using RMS of the residual signal will also be high as compared to differ-
the Hilbert transform and is given by ence signal where first order sidebands are eliminated. Therefore,
this gear fault indicator will be sensitive towards gear crack.
sðtÞ ¼ j½bðtÞ þ i½HðbðtÞÞj ð9Þ
where b(t) is the band-pass filtered signal about the mesh 3.2.2. Proposed condition indicator II (PS-II)
frequency, H(b(t)) is the Hilbert transform of b(t) and i is the This condition indicator resemble to central moments of statis-
sample. tics. Entropy is only dependent on probability distribution of the
random event occurrence and the fault appearing phenomenon is
3.1.8. Energy ratio randomness in the signal. Let, an incomplete probability set of dis-
It is a ratio of RMS of the difference signal d to the RMS of the crete random events X = {x1, x2, x3, . . ., xn} over a finite duration be
signal containing only the regular meshing components yd and is P = {p1, p2, p3, . . ., pn} which is the probability of occurring event
given by [39] from set X such that 0 6 pi 6 1. The sum of total probabilities is
P
expressed as xðpÞ ¼ pi 6 1. The generalized Rényi entropy for
RMSd
ER ¼ ð10Þ i
RMSyd incomplete probability distribution is given by [44]
564 V. Sharma, A. Parey / Measurement 90 (2016) 560–575

Fig. 5. Experimental set up (DDS).

Table 2
Main parameters of input gear and output gear.
Table 3
Parameter Input gear Output gear Accelerometer specification,

Type Spur (involute) Spur (involute) Model no. Sensitivity Frequency Measuring
No. of teeth 32 80 (mV/(m/s2)) range (Hz) range (m/s2pk)
Diametral pitch (per mm) 0.6299 0.6299
PCB 333B32 (±10%) 10.2 (±5%) 0.5–3000 ±490
Module 1.5875 1.5875
Face width (mm) 12.5 12.5
Material Steel Steel

Zoomed view

Arrow showing the

direction of vibrations to
be measured
Accelerometer Bearing housing Wax Accelerometer
cable

Fig. 6. Accelerometer position.

Accelerometer

Gearbox
housing
Tachometer

Coupling
Input shaft

Motor

Bearing housing
Tacho-reflector wheel

Fig. 7. Arrangement of tachometer and accelerometer.

 V. Sharma, A. Parey / Measurement 90 (2016) 560–575 565

Fig. 8. Pinion with different tooth cracks, (a) healthy gear tooth with scale for PCD measurements, (b) initial crack (length = 1 mm), and (c) advanced crack (length = 3 mm).

5.2
6.5
Speed (Hz)

5
4.8 6

Sinusoidal fluctuating
4.6 Actual Input Speed 5.5
4.4 5
Machine Response Speed

profile
4.2
4 4.5
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 4
Time (sec) 3.5
3
Fig. 9. Constant speed profile input to machine. Actual Input Speed
2.5 Machine Response Speed
2
!
1 XN 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Ha ðPÞ ¼ log2 pai ð14Þ
1a i¼1
Time (sec)

Fig. 11. Sinusoidal fluctuation profile of speed.

where the values of Ha depends on pi for any value of a such that
!
a > 0 and a–1 and a is the order of entropy. 1 X a
Entropy will be smaller if the probabilities are small and vice- Ha ðYÞ ¼ log2 Yi ð15Þ
1a y2Y
versa. So, considering the high values of entropy will assist to high-
light the uncertainty. Therefore, considering this, X is replaced by a On solving, we can write
data set Y of higher magnitude but of same nature, satisfying P
P 1 ð1=NÞ Ni¼1 yai
0 6 yi 6 1 and Ni¼1 yi 6 1. Therefore, Y, can be considered as the Ha ðYÞ ¼ log2 h ia þ log2 N ð16Þ
1a P
probability distribution function of X, where yi is considered as ð1=NÞ N y i¼1 i
the probability of the instantaneous amplitude of X. This is very
useful in the diagnosis of gears because, healthy gear usually gen- Considering this entropy expression to be a moment (PS-II, pro-
erates a vibration signature with nearly Gaussian distribution, posed condition indicator), then it can be rewritten as
while the vibration acquired from a faulty gear is non-Gaussian P
ð1=NÞ Ni¼1 yai
distribution with a relative increase in the number of large- PS-II ¼ h P ia ð17Þ
amplitude components. Additionally, the value of energy of the sig- ð1=NÞ Ni¼1 yi
nal will increase proportionally to gear fault progression. Thus, a
variation or change in the entropy Ha will be helpful in identifying Now, yi = (xi  lx)3, but for Gaussian distribution based signal
a defect. So, for this argument Y can be expressed as Y ¼ PyNi lx = 0; yi = (xi)3
y
i¼1 i P a
where yi = (xi  lx)3. With this third power the nature will remain ð1=NÞ Ni¼1 ððxi Þ3 Þ
PS-II ¼ h P i a ð18Þ
same only the magnitude will be increased. Substituting these val-
ð1=NÞ Ni¼1 ðxi Þ3
ues in Eq. (14), we get

No crack Initial Crack Advanced Crack

10 10
20
Amplitude
Amplitude

Amplitude

5
0 0 0
-5
-10 -20
-10
0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4
4 4 4
Time (samples) x 10 Time (samples) x 10 Time (samples) x 10

Fig. 10. Signals acquired at constant speed.

566 V. Sharma, A. Parey / Measurement 90 (2016) 560–575

No crack Initial crack Advanced crack

10 10 20

Amplitude

Amplitude
Amplitude

0 0 0

-10 -10 -20

0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4
4
x 10 x 10 4 x 10 4
Time (samples) Time (samples) Time (samples)

Fig. 12. Signals acquired at sinusoidal fluctuating profile of speed.

Actual Input Speed

9
7 Machine Response Speed
8
Quadratic fluctuating

fluctuating profile
7 6

Random speed
6
5
profile

5
4 4
3
3
2 Actual Input Speed
1 Machine Response Speed 2
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Time (sec)
Time (sec) Fig. 15. Random fluctuating profile of speed.

Fig. 13. Quadratic fluctuating profile of speed.

a pinion and a gear of 20° pressure angle. The center distance

between gearbox shafts is 89 ± 1 mm, which can be used for other
Now, considering a = 4/3 = 1.333, this satisfies the aforemen-
parallel transmission. Details of gears are listed in Table 2.
tioned conditions, therefore
The gearing system is lubricated by splash lubrication provided
P 4=3 at bottom of gear housing. Lubricant used is SAE 80 W-90.
ð1=NÞ Ni¼1 ððxi Þ3 Þ
PS-II ¼ h i4=3 ð19Þ Fig. 6 shows the location of accelerometer and the direction of
P
ð1=NÞ Ni¼1 ðxi Þ3 accelerometer to measure the vibrations. The accelerometer is to
be placed in such a way that there should be minimum transfer
For a pure Gaussian distribution, the value of moment will be path in order to acquire valuable information from vibration sig-
close to three, but for the randomness in the signal due to fault nals. The faulty pinion is loaded on input shaft; therefore a uniaxial
existence, its value may get deviated raising an alarm, to call out accelerometer is mounted on the bearing housing of input shaft of
for fault. Considering residual signal, therefore the above expres- the gearbox as shown in Fig. 7. The signals of DDS are acquired in
sion for PS-II can be rewritten as digital data format with highest resolution to which accelerome-
PN 4=3 ters are accurate. PCB based ICP type accelerometer is used (spec-
1

r Þ3 
i¼1 ½ðr i ification listed in Table 3). A built-in tachometer with one pulse per
PS-II ¼ hN i4=3 ð20Þ
PN revolution analog transistor–transistor logic (TTL) output is used
1
N

3
i¼1 ðr i  r Þ
for detection of input shaft revolution as shown in Fig. 7.
where ri is the sample of residual signal at ith index and
r is the
mean value of the residual signal. 4.2. Generation of crack on pinion tooth

Using wirecut electrode discharge machining, two cracks has

4. Experimental evaluation
been introduced in the pinion tooth for experimental study of the
cracked tooth based on the study of Pandya and Parey [34,35].
4.1. Experimental setup
Initial crack of 1 mm and advanced crack of 3 mm are generated
by using a wire of 0.5 mm diameter of brass as shown in Fig. 8.
The vibration signals were recorded from the drivetrain diag-
nostic simulator (DDS). It is functionally a motor-drive-brake kind
of test setup using a 2.237 kW, 3 phase, 0–3000 rpm AC drive with 4.3. Speed fluctuation profiles & signal acquisition
motor controller for variable speed operation. Load is applied by
magnetic particle brake of capacity 0.45–24.85 N m. The test set- Practically when a gearbox is in operation, its speed fluctuates.
up is shown in Fig. 5, which comprises of single stage gear box with These fluctuations may appear in any fashion. Fluctuations are

No crack Initial crack Advanced crack

10 20 50
Amplitude

Amplitude

Amplitude

0 0 0

-10 -20 -50

0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4
4 4
x 10 x 10
4 x 10
Time (samples) Time (samples) Time (samples)

Fig. 14. Signals acquired at quadratic fluctuating profile of speed.

 V. Sharma, A. Parey / Measurement 90 (2016) 560–575 567

Initial crack Advanced crack

10 10
Amplitude

Amplitude
Amplitude
10
0 0 0
-10
-10 -10
0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4
4 4
x 10 4
Time (samples) Time (samples) x 10 Time (samples) x 10

Fig. 16. Signals acquired at random fluctuating speed.

(a) (c)

Amplitude
Amplitude

10 10
0 0
-10 -10
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
Time (sec) Time (sec)

(b) (d)
Amplitude

Amplitude
10 10
0 0
-10 -10
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
Time (sec) Time (sec)

Fig. 17. CTSA signals (left column) and MTSA signals (right column) obtained for constant input speed with (a and c) initial and (b and d) advanced crack.

(a) (c)
Amplitude

Amplitude

5 5
0 0
-5 -5
0 0.08 0.16 0.24 0.32 0.4 0.48 0.56 0.64 0.72 0.8 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
Time (sec) Time (sec)

(b) (d)
Amplitude
Amplitude

5 5
0 0
-5 -5
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
Time (sec) Time (sec)

Fig. 18. CTSA signals (left column) and MTSA signals (right column) obtained for sinusoidal fluctuating profile of speed with (a and c) initial and (b and d) advanced crack.

(a) (c)
Amplitude

Amplitude

-5 5
0 0
-5
-5
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
Time (sec) Time (sec)

(b) (d)
Amplitude
Amplitude

5 5
0 0
-5 -5
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
Time (sec) Time (sec)

Fig. 19. CTSA signals (left column) and MTSA signals (right column) obtained for quadratic fluctuating profile of speed with (a and c) initial and (b and d) advanced crack.

produced within the gearbox because of its inertia or friction or due sent study is only related to fluctuating speed environments with
to uneven mass distribution in the system. Various fluctuating 25% constant loading condition in the range of 0.45–24.85 N m.
input speed profiles are found in the literature [21,41–43]. Three The following are the cases of limited speed fluctuation profiles.
types of input speed fluctuation profile about mean speed along
with constant input speed are considered here for the experiment. 4.3.1. Constant speed
Signals are acquired at a sampling rate of 3200 samples/s for 12.5 s. The first and the ideal case is the constant speed case as shown
The application of these fluctuating input speed profiles can be in Fig. 9, in which the speed of the rotating shaft is kept as 5 Hz.
found in wind turbines. Limited speed fluctuations and instanta- Fig. 10, displays the acquired vibration signal with constant speed
neous high speed fluctuations are considered in this study. The pre- for healthy (no crack), initial crack and advanced crack.
568 V. Sharma, A. Parey / Measurement 90 (2016) 560–575

(a) (c)

Amplitude

Amplitude
10 10
0 0
-10 -10
0 0.08 0.16 0.24 0.32 0.48 0.56 0.64 0.72 0.8 0 0.08 0.16 0.24 0.32 0.48 0.56 0.64 0.72 0.8
Time (sec) Time (sec)

(b) (d)
10
Amplitude

10

Amplitude
0 0

-10 -10
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
Time (sec) Time (sec)

Fig. 20. CTSA signals (left column) and MTSA signals (right column) obtained for random fluctuating profile of speed with (a and c) initial and (b and d) advanced crack.

Table 4
SNR comparison for CTSA and MTSA for all speed conditions.

Gear Condition SNR % Increase in SNR

CTSA MTSA
(a) Constant input speed
No crack 0.1201 0.123 2.414654455
Initial crack 0.077 0.1057 37.27272727
Advanced crack 0.1959 0.2019 3.062787136
(b) Sinusoidally fluctuating input speed
No crack 106.5948 0.1135 99.89352201
Initial crack 0.0705 0.3389 380.7092199
Advanced crack 0.3029 0.9215 204.2258171
(c) Quadratically fluctuating input speed
No crack 180.03 0.1849 99.8972949
Initial crack 0.1479 1.6942 1245.503719
Advanced crack 0.2001 2.1352 967.0664668
(d) Random fluctuating input speed
No crack 111.3834 0.1724 99.84521931
Initial crack 0.2888 2.1367 839.8545706
Advanced crack 1.1429 2.7190 337.9035786

1400 Table 5
Average time consumed in seconds.
% improvement in SNR for

1200
Interpolation Our Decker and Zakrajsek McFadden
1000 method study [37] [36]

800 Linear 0.58370 0.328 174

MTSA

Cubic spline 1.3774 1.1718 431

600

400

200
4.3.3. Quadratic fluctuations of speed
0 The quadratic fluctuating profile of speed is also noticed in wind
No Crack Initial Crack Advanced Crack
turbines under operation [41]. Similarly, a quadratic fluctuating
Health of Gear profile of speed is expressed as fi = 12.9t2 + 20t + 1, where fi is
Constant input speed Quadratically fluctuating input the input speed and t is time. Fig. 13 shows the quadratic speed
speed
Sinusoidally fluctuating input Random fluctuating input speed fluctuation profile of speed and Fig. 14 shows the acquired signals
speed
for aforementioned speed for healthy gear, initial crack and
Fig. 21. % improvement in SNR for MTSA with respect to CTSA. advanced crack conditions.

4.3.4. Random speed fluctuation

4.3.2. Sinusoidal fluctuation of speed
The next case is of sinusoidal speed fluctuation, which is mostly
observed in gearbox [42,43]. Sinusoidal speed fluctuation profile is
applied at the input of the gear shaft. The rotating frequency of
gear is given by fi = 5 + (sin(2p5t)), where fi is the input speed
and t is time. Fig. 11 shows the sinusoidal fluctuating profile of
speed. Fig. 12 shows the signals acquired for the healthy gear,
initial crack and the advanced crack in the gear.
Besides random speed fluctuations have been observed in non-
stationary speed conditions [21]. Therefore, random speed fluctua-
tions are also considered fluctuating in a random way around 20%
at speed of input frequency 5 Hz. Therefore, the input speed fi is
expressed as fi = [5, 5.5, 4.5, 4, 6, 5, 5.5, 4.5, 4, 6]. Profile of random
fluctuations is shown in Fig. 15. Fig. 16 shows the time domain sig-
nal acquired for the random speed fluctuations about mean rotat-
ing speed for all the above stated gear conditions.
 V. Sharma, A. Parey / Measurement 90 (2016) 560–575 569

Table 6
Time domain condition indicators.

Features Gear health conditions % Increase

No crack Initial crack Advanced crack Initial crack Advanced crack
(a) Constant input speed
RMS 1.086 2.245 6.967 106.646 541.379
Kurtosis 3.440 4.060 9.243 18.028 168.732
Crest Factor 2.892 4.236 6.288 46.483 117.427
FM0 0.020 0.003 0.002 84.848 92.424
FM4 3.184 4.295 7.659 34.913 140.574
M6A 14.096 32.556 124.064 130.961 780.138
NB4 2.222 4.086 10.674 83.903 380.474
ER 0.608 1.675 2.944 175.403 384.035
EOP 3.622 11.109 38.373 206.670 959.334
NA4 3.041 4.155 4.788 36.647 57.437
PS-I 0.082 0.095 0.239 15.431 189.793
PS-II 6.251 6.804 8.015 8.854 28.232
(b) Sinusoidally fluctuating input speed
RMS 0.195 0.351 1.247 80.390 540.349
Kurtosis 3.299 3.651 2.932 10.648 11.136
Crest Factor 3.413 3.191 2.980 6.496 12.690
FM0 0.005 0.006 0.007 23.404 51.064
FM4 2.866 2.933 2.727 2.338 4.840
M6A 12.760 13.118 10.545 2.810 17.360
NB4 2.770 2.685 2.396 3.083 13.498
ER 2.406 2.227 3.647 7.472 51.577
EOP 8.552 10.796 7.227 26.246 15.491
NA4 4.158 4.713 3.170 13.349 23.772
PS-I 0.059 0.091 0.121 53.299 104.061
PS-II 3.934 4.981 10.198 26.616 159.257
(c) Quadratically fluctuating input speed
RMS 0.865 0.517 1.328 40.187 53.626
Kurtosis 2.920 3.112 2.551 6.579 12.654
Crest Factor 2.422 3.209 2.505 32.490 3.443
FM0 0.015 0.004 0.004 74.830 71.429
FM4 2.357 2.978 2.649 26.348 12.383
M6A 7.509 13.658 10.621 81.887 41.448
NB4 1.495 3.270 2.769 118.738 85.249
ER 0.305 2.776 3.100 809.833 916.060
EOP 6.066 7.763 6.165 27.978 1.634
NA4 2.067 3.679 3.103 78.045 50.133
PS-I 0.013 0.031 0.102 144.000 713.600
PS-II 2.965 4.262 5.423 341.862 462.202
(d) Random fluctuating input speed
RMS 0.444 0.851 2.141 91.749 382.687
Kurtosis 3.883 4.141 2.941 6.633 24.270
Crest Factor 3.171 3.544 2.988 11.752 5.796
FM0 0.006 0.008 0.008 31.667 35.000
FM4 3.275 3.332 2.581 1.740 21.216
M6A 16.547 16.395 9.718 0.917 41.272
NB4 2.933 3.163 3.062 7.832 4.398
ER 1.758 1.773 2.245 0.893 27.742
EOP 8.144 14.895 10.256 82.902 25.944
NA4 6.036 6.643 3.276 10.063 45.729
PS-I 0.012 0.049 0.104 301.626 745.528
PS-II 2.550 3.667 6.887 43.832 170.135

5. Comparison of Classical TSA and MTSA
With the purpose of highlighting the MTSA’s effectiveness
towards the filtering of signal, so that the attention can be drawn
towards the fault components present in the signal. These compo-
nents cannot be deciphered using the classic TSA for fluctuating
speed. A comparison has be made by plotting the Classical TSA
(CTSA) signal and MTSA signal for various speed combinations
for initial crack and advanced crack conditions. This comparative
analysis clearly depicts that CTSA fails to project the fault appear-
ing at fluctuating speeds.
The lacuna of CTSA can be observed by comparing Figs. 17–18,
19 and 20 the features which are visible in the constant input speed
are not visible in the signals processed using CTSA for various fluc-
tuating profiles of speeds. Moreover, the fault features are likely to
get inseparable towards the end of rotation as they are in different
phase in those positions. This shows that at varying speed, CTSA is
not capable of presenting fault features after attenuating unwanted
components which were mixed during vibration signal recording.
While the MTSA technique based time domain signal looks approx-
imately similar for both changing input speed profile and the
constant rpm condition. In addition to this, the amplitude of vibra-
tion is also of the same order. Due to impulse produced by the
advanced crack, the presence of high amplitude vibration transients
can be seen at in Figs. 17–20(c and d). Moreover, it can also be
observed that the amounts of non-synchronous components are
wiped out. Therefore, it can be understood that the occurrence of
a crack can be noticed by looking the TSA signal only, when the
crack advanced to 3 mm.
570 V. Sharma, A. Parey / Measurement 90 (2016) 560–575

8 10 7
7 (a) 9 (b) (c)
6
8

Crest Factor
6

Kurtosis
5 7 5
RMS

4 6
3 5 4
2 4 3
1 3
0 2 2
No crack Initial Advanced No crack Initial Advanced No crack Initial Advanced
crack crack crack crack crack crack

8
0.025
(d) 7 (e) (f)
0.020
6
0.015

FM4
FM0

5
0.010
4
0.005 3
No crack Initial Advanced
0.000 2 crack crack
No crack Initial Advanced No crack Initial Advanced
crack crack crack crack
12 4.0
(g) (h) 45

Energy Operator (EOP)

10 3.5 40 (i)
Energy Ratio (ER)

3.0 35
8
2.5 30
NB4

6 2.0 25
1.5 20
4
15
1.0
2 10
0.5 5
0 0.0 0
No crack Initial Advanced No crack Initial Advanced No crack Initial Advanced
crack crack crack crack crack crack

7
(j) 0.30
(k) 12
6 0.25 (l)
10
5 0.20 8
NA4

PS-I

PS-II

4 0.15 6
3 0.10 4
2 0.05 2
1 0.00 0
No crack Initial Advanced No crack Initial Advanced No crack Initial Advanced
crack crack crack crack crack crack

Fig. 22. Variation of condition indicators for different input speed and gear health conditions.

Table 7
Percentage increase for proposed indicators at different input speed conditions.

Conditions? Constant input speed Sinusoidally fluctuating Quadratically Random fluctuating input
input speed fluctuating input speed
speed
Indicators? PS-I PS-II PS-I PS-II PS-I PS-II PS-I PS-II
% Increase w.r.t no crack 15.431 8.8535 53.299 26.6161 144 341.862 301.63 43.8321
% Increase w.r.t. initial crack 189.793 28.232 104.061 159.257 713.6 462.202 745.528 170.135

 "
 #
In order to compare the performance of MTSA and CTSA for signal power RMSsignal 2
vibration signal, signal to noise ratio (SNR) has been calculated SNRdB ¼ 10log10 ¼ 10log10
noise power RMSnoise
for all the input speed conditions. The SNR is defined as the ratio

of signal power to noise power and is expressed in dB [45]: RMSsignal
¼ 20log10
RMSnoise
 V. Sharma, A. Parey / Measurement 90 (2016) 560–575 571

Fig. 25. Instantaneous high speed quadratic fluctuating profile of speed.

Fig. 23. Instantaneous high speed sinusoidal fluctuating profile of speed.

health condition (i.e., no crack, initial crack and advanced crack). It
can be inferred from Fig. 22, that for the case of constant input
The values of SNR calculated for vibration signals for all the
speed, all the indicators are working well showing increasing pat-
operational speed conditions are presented in Table 4.
terns, whereas (d) shows that FM0 is sinking. M6A and EOP are
The % increase in SNR for MTSA is illustrated in Fig. 21, for var-
more responsive (f and i) towards fault for constant speed. For
ious fluctuating profiles of input speed w.r.t. gear health. It shows
the case of sinusoidal speed fluctuations, kurtosis, FM4, CF, M6A,
that for no crack condition MTSA is almost same for all fluctuating
NB4, EOP and NA4 are not showing sensitivity towards increasing
profiles except for constant speed. Moreover, % increase in SNR for
gear crack (b, c, e, f, g, i, and j). Similarly, rms and energy ratio are
initial crack is very high than the no crack and advanced crack con-
failing to show response towards initial crack for the case of quad-
dition. On the other hand, % increase in SNR is more for quadrati-
ratic speed fluctuations (a and h). On the other hand, proposed
cally fluctuating input speed than any other input speed profile
condition indicators PS-I and PS-II are sensitive and showing
comparatively. It is worthy to note that the values of SNR for CTSA
increasing trends towards the crack growth for all input speed con-
for different fluctuating speed conditions are low and ranging from
ditions. Comparative study of condition indicators with fluctuating
180.03 dB to 0.3029 dB. This implies that the noise content in the
input speed profiles clearly highlights that, the most of the indica-
signal is very high and not completely filtered. For MTSA, SNR
tors are responsive to speed fluctuations and less sensitive to crack
ranges from 0.1135 dB to 2.7190 dB, it means that the asyn-
conditions except PS-I and PS-II. The responses of existing condi-
chronous components are attenuated. This shows that MTSA is
tion indicators varies for gear crack conditions and are not appear-
capable of filtering noise from asynchronous vibration signals gen-
ing in same fashion, hence can be considered unsusceptible to fault
erated due to various fluctuating input speeds.
diagnosis prospects with fluctuating input speeds.
Another comparison of time consumed for interpolation by var-
ious methods of interpolation, mentioned in the available litera-
ture, and the present study has been presented in Table 5. It has
6.1. Performance of proposed condition indicators
been found that the time consumed by cubic spline interpolation
is 2.5 times of the linear interpolation. Whereas, studies presented
Generally, the condition indicators with high sensitivity to
by Decker and Zakrajsek [37] and McFadden [36], shows that the
faulty vibrations is more desirable because in real time situation
time consumed by the cubic spline interpolation is 3.5 times of lin-
there is always a chance that abnormal vibrations may result in
ear interpolation. Hence, the proposed method of resampling and
failure of component/s. An effective indicator can be highlighted
interpolation can be used for fault diagnosis of gears under fluctu-
by comparing its sensitivity at all possible conditions. It is worth
ating speeds. Moreover it is effective in attenuating non-
noting that the values of PS-I, PS-II increases with increasing crack
synchronous components present in vibration signal acquired
for all kinds of speed fluctuations. The percentage increase of PS-I
under fluctuating speed conditions.
and PS-II are mentioned in Table 7, for various input speed condi-
tions. The increase in the resultant values of PS-I and PS-II are con-
6. Evaluation of all CI on MTSA signals under limited speed sistent and repeatable for all the input speed conditions and for all
fluctuation gear conditions.
From Table 7, it is observed that the sensitivity of PS-I is more
Existing and proposed condition indicators for different cases of than PS-II, as it is varying in a high range, whereas, PS-II shows
gear health and for limited speed fluctuations have been evaluated stable behavior, therefore PS-II can be marked as a robust indica-
for MTSA based time domain signals. And have been tabulated in tor. Hence, a conclusion can be drawn from this, that indicators like
Table 6. RMS, kurtosis and many more suffer due to speed fluctuations,
Fig. 22 shows the performance analysis of various condition while PS-I and PS-II shows an approximate robustness against
indicators for different input speed conditions w.r.t. different gear speed fluctuations.

No crack Initial crack Advanced crack

20
15 18
Amplitude

Amplitude

Amplitude

0 0 0
-15 -18
-20
0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4
4 4 4
Time (samples) x 10 Time (samples) x 10 Time (samples) x 10

Fig. 24. Signals acquired at instantaneous high speed sinusoidal fluctuating profile of speed.
572 V. Sharma, A. Parey / Measurement 90 (2016) 560–575

Initial crack Advanced crack

15

Amplitude
Amplitude 18

Amplitude
20
0 0 0
-18 -20
-15
0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4
4
4
x 10
4 x 10 x 10
Time (samples) Time (samples) Time (samples)

Fig. 26. Signals acquired at instantaneous high speed quadratic fluctuating profile of speed.

7. Evaluation of all CIs on MTSA under instantaneous high speed

fluctuations

To analyze the performance of existing and proposed CIs in

terms of fault identification, sensitivity towards fault, stability
and robustness, some different instantaneous speed fluctuating
profile of speed has been considered. Though the profile the fluctu-
ating speeds is same, but there is a gain in speed as a result of the
wind shear in wind turbines. Signals are recorded for all the three
fluctuating profiles of speeds viz, sinusoidal fluctuating profile of
speed, quadratic fluctuating profile of speed and random fluctuat-
ing profile of speed. In all these speed fluctuation profiles an
instantaneous gain of 15 Hz has been made to imitate fluctuation
Fig. 27. Instantaneous high speed random fluctuating profile of speed.

No crack Initial crack Advanced crack

15 18
Amplitude

Amplitude

Amplitude
20
0 0 0
-20
-15 -18
0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4
4 4
x 10 x 10 4
Time (samples) Time (samples) Time (samples) x 10

Fig. 28. Signals acquired at instantaneous high speed random fluctuating profile of speed.

Table 8
Condition indicators for instantaneous speed fluctuation in speed profile.

Features Gear health conditions % Increase

No crack Initial crack Advanced crack Initial crack Advanced crack
(a) Sinusoidally fluctuating profile of speed
RMS 0.3249 0.3626 0.4510 11.6036 24.3795
Kurtosis 8.7320 9.4968 7.7724 8.7586 18.1577
Crest Factor 11.3340 9.1921 8.3569 18.8980 9.0861
FM0 0.0400 0.0850 0.1101 112.5000 29.5294
FM4 4.9670 7.6475 6.2578 53.9662 18.1720
M6A 15.5876 22.4870 20.1450 44.2621 10.4149
NB4 6.6167 7.1865 6.1113 8.6112 14.9617
ER 3.4587 3.0120 6.5871 12.9153 118.6952
EOP 8.0124 10.9872 6.5787 37.1275 40.1240
NA4 5.1945 5.9875 7.0124 15.2661 17.1173
PS-I 1.0125 1.9958 2.2124 97.1258 10.8528
PS-II 3.0955 8.5678 12.3478 176.7851 44.1187
(b) Quadratically fluctuating profile of speed
RMS 0.3320 0.2706 0.2501 18.4940 7.5758
Kurtosis 22.5920 19.1288 13.9320 15.3293 27.1674
Crest Factor 15.3252 11.4917 14.1496 25.0144 23.1289
FM0 0.0380 0.0300 0.0618 21.0526 106.0000
FM4 5.5670 6.6547 4.2587 19.5384 36.0046
M6A 17.5999 12.9487 21.9145 26.4273 69.2409
NB4 7.8957 10.2458 11.1112 29.7640 8.4466
ER 5.7845 8.5790 9.9501 48.3101 15.9820
EOP 12.0840 9.8721 15.6787 18.3044 58.8183
NA4 6.0125 7.1254 5.4210 18.5108 23.9201
PS-I 0.9987 1.5014 2.0014 50.3354 33.3023
PS-II 3.9875 7.6875 10.1245 92.7900 31.7008
 V. Sharma, A. Parey / Measurement 90 (2016) 560–575 573

Table 8 (continued)

Features Gear health conditions % Increase

No crack Initial crack Advanced crack Initial crack Advanced crack
(c) Random fluctuating profile of speed
RMS 0.4021 0.4445 0.5018 10.5446 12.8909
Kurtosis 11.3993 12.4027 7.9411 8.8026 35.9728
Crest Factor 13.3170 8.2868 8.5940 37.7728 3.7071
FM0 0.0541 0.0782 0.0719 44.4547 7.9962
FM4 5.1517 5.6151 5.9926 8.9966 6.7218
M6A 14.9988 16.1195 17.7209 7.4721 9.9347
NB4 6.1156 5.1801 6.9913 15.2978 34.9647
ER 3.1546 3.9901 3.2877 26.4869 17.6041
EOP 8.0111 8.7515 8.5714 9.2415 2.0576
NA4 5.9115 6.9888 7.0101 18.2240 0.3058
PS-I 1.0114 1.8579 2.1142 83.6949 13.7958
PS-II 3.2548 9.0124 15.8754 176.8957 76.1506

Fig. 29. Performance of CIs for instantaneous speed fluctuations.

574
Fig. 30. Mahalanobis distance for instantaneous high fluctuating profile of speeds.
of 3 times of nominal speed. Figs. 23, 25 and 27 show the instanta-
neous high speed fluctuating profiles of speed.
Figs. 24, 26 and 28 shows the vibration signals acquired for
instantaneous high speed fluctuations in gears. It can be noticed
that with increasing crack length the vibration amplitude
increases. For such instantaneous speed fluctuations up to 15 Hz,
a comparison of various condition indicators has been presented
in Table 8.
From Fig. 29, it has been noticed that CIs fail to show the fault
conditions of the gear with increasing crack. But, the proposed
indicators still remain sensitive towards crack as the magnitude
of indicators increases with the increase in fault condition. At lim-
ited speed fluctuation and at instantaneous high speed fluctuation,
the trends of proposed CI remains same, i.e., the magnitude of pro-
posed indicators PS-I and PS-II increases with increase in crack.
Their sensitiveness towards highlighting crack under both limited
and instantaneous high speed fluctuation shows their robustness.
7.1. Validation of proposed CI in terms of separating ability
For supporting the proposed condition indicators, Mahalanobis
distance has been calculated. 10 data sets of vibration signal are
acquired at different fluctuating profiles of speed for instantaneous
high speed fluctuation at the same rate of 3200 samples/s for 12.5 s
for each gear conditions. Mahalanobis distance is weighted dis-
tance between two vectors and is used as a measure of the similar-
ity between the vectors [46]. It uses mean and variance to calculate
the statistical distance. The equation for Mahalanobis distance is
presented below.
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
MDi ¼ ðxi  xÞC 1 x ðxi  xÞ
T
where x1 and x2 are the two vectors, containing n objects and Cx is
the variance – covariance matrix calculated as follows:
1
Cx ¼ ðX c ÞT ðX c Þ
ðn  1Þ
V. Sharma, A. Parey / Measurement 90 (2016) 560–575
And Xc is the column centered matrix ðxi 
xÞ, superscript T is
for transpose of the matrix. The graphs in Fig. 30 for Mahalanobis
distance reflects the separating ability or distinguishes the data
related to different gear health. In all the graphs it has been found
that the data processed by the weighted distance procedure shows
the monotonic trend towards the health of the gears under differ-
ent speed fluctuating profiles of speed. On the other hand, the
behavior of condition indicators fluctuates with respect to speed.
But the CI proposed in this study also shows the seperatability
and increasing trends.
8. Conclusion
In this paper, experiments have been performed for various gear
tooth conditions and different fluctuating profiles of speed. SNR
has been improved by using MTSA for all the gear health
conditions and various speed conditions, thereby attenuating
non-synchronous components. It can also be noticed that %
improvement in SNR for MTSA is much for initial crack as com-
pared to advanced crack over CTSA. Also, the time consumed for
resampling and cubic spline interpolation is comparatively less
than the studies found in literature.
A comparative study of CIs for fluctuations in input speed pro-
files w.r.t gear health has been performed for both limited speed
fluctuation and instantaneous high speed fluctuations. The com-
parison drawn clearly highlights that the most of the indicators
are responsive towards speed fluctuations, but insensitive to fault
diagnosis prospects. Hence, two new indicators have been sug-
gested. Proposed indicators have been applied to MTSA signal for
fault identification. From the comparative study and performance
ð21Þ
analysis it is found that for all the mode of speed fluctuation con-
sidered here, PS-I and PS-II are sensing the increase of crack, as
their values are increasing compared to other existing indicators.
Since, PS-I and PS-II shows the consistent sensitivity towards crack
ð22Þ for all the fluctuating profiles of input speeds, therefore they can be
used for fault diagnosis of gears with fluctuating speed conditions.
 V. Sharma, A. Parey / Measurement 90 (2016) 560–575 575

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