BEARING FAULT ANALYSIS
This program demonstrates how you can analyze the operation of a bearing, and how faults can be found by means of Signal Processing.
Created by Roni Peer, Last Revision: December 30th, 2011
Contents
Why to use this program
In order to fully leverage this program, I recommend reading some theory, as can be found on Wikipedia or other textbooks. This program takes a ball-bearing, simulates a fault in its inner or outer ring, and tries to show how you can view the fault, by means of finding the resonance frequencies.
Menus and Options
There are several key options you can select with this program.
Bearing Fault type:
On the right popup menu select between the "Inner Ring" or "Outer Ring" fault. An inner ring fault would generate a sinewave-like signal, an Outer ring fault would generate a pulsing signal.
Rotation Speed
A slider of the Rotation Speed (in RPM), in which the bearing is operating. Input range is between 1 and 2000.
Analysis Type
A pop-up menu to choose between 4 types of analysis: Spectral Analysis, Kurtosis, Envelope, and Time/Frequency.
Kurtosis Option
The Kurtosis option on the pop-up menu will generate 3 Kurtosis numbers (compatible with the 3 different resonances, of 120, 500, 1500 [rad/sec]), which will be shown below.
Filter for Envelope
The 'Filter For Envelope' button enables a band pass filter over a preset bandwidth of the envelope. To set the bandwidth press the 'Filter For Envelope' button. set the first band limit by dragging the cursor on the graph. press "Enter", a 2nd cursor will appear, set it up to the 2nd limit of the desired bandwidth. press "Enter" again to get the filtered signal.
Run Button
The 'Run' button is needed to be pressed so that the changes we made will effect the calculations and graphs of the program.
Plots and Axes
You can view several different aspects of the bearing system at hand.
Top Left Graph
This graph shows the input signal - the signal measured at the faulty bearing.
Top Right Graph
This graph shows the BODE frequency-Magnitude plot of the system.
Central Graph
This graph shows the system response.
Bottom Graph
This graph shows the output of the selected analysis plot.