Monitoring extremely slow rolling element bearings: part I

Abstract

The most established technique for monitoring the integrity of rolling element bearings is vibration analysis. However, at extremely slow rotational speeds monitoring the health of rolling element bearings is fraught with difficulty. Part I of this work details difficulties with monitoring rolling element bearings rotating at speeds of less than 2 rpm. Furthermore, it presents a study of the high frequency acoustic emission (AE) technique as a means of monitoring low-speed rolling element bearings. The application of AEs to monitor operational slow-speed bearings with bore diameters of 120 mm is presented. It is concluded that the mechanism of AE generation was the relative movement between bearing elements experiencing loss of mechanical integrity, for example, the rolling/sliding action of a roller on a defective outer race.