Vibration-based diagnostics of epicyclic gearboxes – From classical to soft-computing methods

Abstract

The paper presents up-to-date multidisciplinary review of scientific knowledge and industrial guidelines concerning the issue of technical assessment of epicyclic gearboxes on the basis of vibrational measurement. The paper covers norms, patents, signal processing methods, technical features, diagnostic methodologies, and high-level soft computing. The review classifies recognized papers according to different aspects, like case difficulty, applied methods or studied objects. Moreover, the paper discusses recent development of diagnostic techniques taking into account changing operational conditions and requiring powerful data processing units not available hitherto. Since in recent years many partial review papers have been published in different journals, the current paper presents their individual scope. Because diagnostics of epicyclic gearboxes generally covers and extends the classical signal processing techniques and classical machine condition monitoring functionality, the current paper might serve as a descriptive database of sources of information and bibliography or as a reference to individual techniques.