Abstract:

When faults occur in bearing cages, they generate an extremely wideband fault signature modulated by the cage rotating frequency as the defective part of the cage rotates in and out of the load zone. Current bearing fault detection methods, which were developed for race and rolling element defects, are aimed at isolating and demodulating relatively powerful high-frequency, narrow-band ringing vibrations, and therefore have difficulty detecting bearing cage faults. Bandwidth-weighted demodulation (BWD), however, is well suited to cage faults because it is more sensitive to wideband, low-power signal modulations than to narrow-band, high-power signal modulations. A bearing cage fault detection algorithm has been established based on BWD. The effectiveness of BWD compared to other methods is demonstrated in simulation and confirmed using experimental data from a failed bearing. [See NOISE-CON Proceedings for full paper.]