Velocity Synchronous Approaches for Planetary Gearbox Fault Diagnosis under Non-Stationary Conditions

Abstract

Time-frequency methods are widely used tools to diagnose planetary gearbox fault under non-stationary conditions. However, the existing time-frequency methods still have some problems, such as smearing effect and cross-term interference, and these problems limit the effectiveness of the existing time-frequency methods in planetary gearbox fault diagnosis under non-stationary conditions. To address the aforementioned problems, four time-frequency methods are proposed in this thesis. As nowadays a large portion of the industrial equipment is equipped with tachometers, the first three methods are for the cases that the shaft rotational speed is easily accessible and the last method is for the cases of shaft rotational speed is not easily accessible. The proposed methods are itemized as follows: (1) The velocity synchronous short-time Fourier transform (VSSTFT), which is a type of linear transform based on the domain mappings and short-time Fourier transform to address the smear effect of the existing linear transforms under known time-varying speed conditions; (2) The velocity synchrosqueezing transform (VST), which is a type of remapping method based on the domain mapping and synchrosqueezing transform to address the smear effect of existing remapping methods under known time-varying speed conditions; (3) The velocity synchronous bilinear distribution (VSBD), which is a type of bilinear distribution based on the generalized demodulation and Cohen’s class bilinear distribution to address the smear effect and cross-term interference of existing bilinear distributions under known time-varying speed conditions and (4) The velocity synchronous linear chirplet transform (VSLCT), which is a non-parametric combined approach of linear transform and concentration-index-guided parameter determination to provide a smear-free and cross-term-free TFR under unknown time-varying speed conditions. In this work, simple algorithms are developed to avoid the signal resampling process required by the domain mappings or demodulations of the first three methods (i.e., the VSSTFT, VST and VSBD). They are designed to have different resolutions, readabilities, noise tolerances and computational efficiencies. Therefore, they are capable to adapt different application conditions. The VSLCT, as a kind of linear transform, is designed for unknown rotational speed conditions. It utilizes a set of shaft-rotational-speed-synchronous bases to address the smear problem and it is capable to dynamically determine the signal processing parameters (i.e., window length and normalized angle) to provide a clear TFR with desirable time-frequency resolution in response to condition variations. All of the proposed methods in this work are smear-free and cross-term-free, the TFRs generated by the methods are clearer and more precise compared with the existing time-frequency methods. The faults of planetary gearboxes, if any, can be diagnosed by identifying the fault-induced components from the obtained TFRs. The four methods are all newly applied to fault diagnosis. The effectiveness of them has been validated using both simulated and experimental vibration signals of planetary gearboxes collected under non-stationary conditions.