Use of Tach from Vibration to Estimate Bearing Spall Length

Abstract

Vibration analysis is often used for bearing fault diagnostics. Envelope analysis or other cyclo-stationary processes can capture a fault feature or condition indicator that is correlated to the spall length. However, no study has defined a process for estimating spall length on real-world data. The problem is that the spall length is a time-domain property of the signal. This paper generates a synthetic tachometer signal from the fault itself. It is synchronous to the rolling element exit from the spall, allowing for a time-domain representation of waveform using the time synchronous average. From this, an estimate of the length of the bearing fault can be determined.