Unbalance detection in rotating machinery based on support vector machine using time and frequency domain vibration features

Abstract

The automated diagnostics of the unbalance in a rotor system has been presented in this study based on an artificial intelligence technique called support vector machine. In order to develop a support vector machine–based unbalance diagnosis, first the raw vibration signals in time and frequency domain are measured experimentally from healthy and unbalanced rotor installed on machine fault simulator. Then, three critical statistical features, namely, standard deviation, skewness, and kurtosis are extracted from the time and frequency domain vibration signals. Further, the features are used for training and testing of the support vector machine for building the automated diagnostic system for unbalance in a rotating system. The results from the present study show that the unbalance fault diagnosis can be effectively done based on the developed support vector machine–based methodology. The automated diagnosis of unbalance is possible with the time domain as well as frequency domain features. The results are better with time domain features than frequency domain features. In addition, the diagnosis is performed and found to be robust at most of the operating speeds of the rotor; however, the diagnosis should be avoided to attempt using the present methodology at very lower operating speeds.