The Error Caused by Order Analysis for Rolling Bearing Fault Signal

Abstract

Defect diagnosis of rolling element bearings operating under time-varying rotational speeds entails order tracking and analysis techniques that convert a vibration signal from the time domain to the angle domain to eliminate the effect of speed variations. When a signal is resampled at a constant angular increment, the amount of data padded into each data segment will vary, depending on the rate of change in the rotational speeds. This leads to changes in the distance between the adjacent impulse peaks, and consequently, the result of order analysis. This paper presents a quantitative analysis of key factors affecting the accuracy of order analysis on rolling element bearings under variable speeds. An analytical model is established and simulated. The effects of speed variation, instantaneous speed, angular interval between impulses, and the rising time of impulse are specified. It is concluded that the results of order analysis will be smaller as the rotational speed increases, and becomes larger when the speed decreases. Furthermore, the error is larger under low speeds than high speed.