Digital twin-driven discriminative graph learning networks for cross-domain bearing fault recognition

Abstract

Rolling bearing fault diagnosis holds paramount significance in industrial field, as it is pivotal for ensuring the reliability, safety, and economic viability of mechanical systems. Most of traditional data-driven fault diagnosis methods rely on the availability of pre-collected data sets (containing various failure modes) as training data. Regrettably, such datasets may not always be easy to collect, particularly in critical industrial settings. Consequently, the applicability of data-driven fault diagnostic methods across diverse applications is impeded. In response to this challenge, this research introduces a digital twin-empowered discriminative graph learning network (DT-DGLN) for bearing fault diagnostics with unlabeled industrial data. The primary improvements of this study are twofold: (1) The creation of an elaborate and meticulous digital twin model for bearings. This model encompasses multi-scale Kinetic simulations of the operational parameters of the bearing and relies exclusively on the architectural attributes of the bearing and magnitude of the failure to deduce the vibratory system’s reaction. (2) The establishment of a domain adaption-based framework based on discriminative graph learning strategy that facilitates the transfer of known intelligence from simulated signals to real signals. This framework enables efficient fault recognition in cases where knowledge is limited. Rigorous experiments have been conducted to validate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.