Rolling element bearing fault identification using a novel three-step adaptive and automated filtration scheme based on Gini index

Abstract

For early detection of rolling element bearings (REBs) faults in contaminated signals, kurtosis-derived indices are involved in the filtration process prior to demodulation. However, they were found either sensitive to impulsive outliers or requiring many input arguments. In this study, a novel three-step adaptive and automated filtration scheme using Gini index (GI) is proposed as an alternative to kurtosis-based techniques to enhance the weak fault features and eliminate noise and interferences from the raw vibration signal. The proposed approach was tested using experimental signals with different bearing faults. The filtered signals were greatly denoised and the fault impulses were successfully isolated, which indicates the effectiveness of the proposed approach and the superiority of GI over kurtosis-derived indices as a criterion for proper filter design for REBs fault detection.