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Procedia Engineering 192 (2017) 971 – 975

TRANSCOM 2017: International scientific conference on sustainable, modern and safe transport

Comparative study of measurement systems used to evaluate

vibrations of rolling bearings
Stanisław Adamczaka, Krzysztof Stępieńa, Mateusz Wrzochala*
a
Kielce University of Technology, Faculty of Mechatronics and Mechanical Engineering,
al. Tysiąclecia Państwa Polskiego 7, Kielce 25-314, Poland

Abstract

The vibrations generated by the rolling bearings have a significant impact on the quality, durability and reliability
of the machines and mechanical devices. In addition, the bearings can be a source of vibrations which intensify the loudness of
devices and produce significant and adverse reactions. The basic parameters describing the amplitude of the vibration of rolling
bearings are: displacement, velocity and acceleration. In the global bearings technology especially favored by manufacturers,
are measurement systems to measure the velocity of vibration. The level of vibration (which is determined by measuring
the amplitude of velocity) can be expressed in specific units closely related to the rotational speed of the bearing. This unit
is Anderon (linear unit, expressed in microns per second) or less used VL (logarithmic unit). Recently, for measurements
of velocity of roller bearings vibrations are applied not only electrodynamic sensors, but also a laser vibrometers. To juxtapose the
results obtained by various methods and devices, it is necessary to conduct comparative researches
©©2017
2017Published
The Authors. Published
by Elsevier by Elsevier
Ltd. This is an openLtd.
access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of TRANSCOM 2017: International scientific conference on
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review
sustainable,under responsibility
modern and safe of the scientific committee of TRANSCOM 2017: International scientific conference on sustainable,
transport.
modern and safe transport
Keywords: Ball bearings; vibrations; measurments

1. Introduction

Rotary elements are large and very important group of machine parts. Therefore, investigating the quality of rotary
machine parts is a matter of great significance [1,2]. One of the most important types of rotary elements are components
of rolling bearings.

* Corresponding author. Tel.:+48 726-565-771;

E-mail address: mwrzochal@tu.kielce.pl

1877-7058 © 2017 Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of TRANSCOM 2017: International scientific conference on sustainable, modern and safe transport
doi:10.1016/j.proeng.2017.06.167
972 Stanisław Adamczak et al. / Procedia Engineering 192 (2017) 971 – 975

Roller bearing is a very common machine element. It is used to transfer the rotation movements and take over
workloads from a rotating element to the machine cover. Ball bearings provide also the very small friction. These
elements position the shaft, restricting longitudinal (axial) displacement. Vibrations in rolling bearings have three
sources: design sources, manufacturing sources and operation sources. The design causes of vibration arise from the
nature of the construction of the rolling bearing. During operation the number of rolling elements which carrying the
workload, periodically changing. This causes the variable elastic deformation in the ball-raceway contacts. Periodic
changes in the position of the applied load, are cause of considerable self-oscillation. Manufacturing sources
of vibrations in rolling bearings are related to deviations of the shape and dimension that arose at the production
or mounting stage. Among them we can be mentioned: roughness and waviness of working surfaces, and the bearing
internal clearance. Manufacturing reasons of vibration also includes point defects of the rolling element and raceway,
and pollution of bearings and lubricants. Even small imperfections can cause significant reactions. Working sources
of vibration are associated with the operation of the bearings and the processes of friction wear
and fatigue wear. During operation, the rolling bearing elements changes deviations of the shape, and surface
condition, also created a new point and surface defects (eg. Pitting) [3, 4].
Manufacturers of bearings uses electrodynamic sensors to control vibration of its products. Electrodynamic sensors
are based on the principle of inducing electrodynamic force in the winding moving in the permanent magnet area.
This force depends on the length of the winding, induction produced by a permanent magnet in the sensor and the
speed of the moving winding in the magnet area. If the the intensity of the magnetic field and length of the coil are
constant, then the generated force is proportional only to the velocity of the move [5, 6].
Nowadays, devices which use laser beam, is very popular to control the level of vibration. Laser vibrometer
compares the laser beam generated by the device with the beam reflected from a vibrating object. If the test object
is moving, the frequency of reflected light is changed due to the Doppler effect. Frequency of photons increases when
the test object moves closer to the source, and decreases when object moving away from source. Knowing
the difference of frequencies of photons, we can directly determine the speed of vibration of the object [7].
Both electrodynamic sensor and a laser vibrometer, although work on different physical principles, can be used
to measure the same quantity - vibration velocity. In this paper will be presented comparison of the two devices
recording the speed of vibration of ball bearings.

2. Experimental research and results

The research methodology is based on the procedures applied in practice in institutions producing bearings. Bearing
is mounted on a shaft rotating at a speed of 1800 rev / min. The outer ring of the bearing is three-point pressed against
with a force equivalent to 6 kg. The electrodynamic sensor has contact with the outer ring. This allows recording of
the speed of vibrations in time in the radial direction [8]. This signal is used to calculate Root Mean Square value
(RMS) filtered in three bands: low frequency range (50-300Hz), medium frequency range (300-1800Hz) and high
frequency range (1800-10000Hz). For assessing the level of vibration are used special units closely linked with
rotational speed. The results described in the article are expressed in Anderons [9]. The RMS values expressed in
Anderons we can calculate from speed units as follows:

fh
1[Anderon] = 2S u 30 log2 [(µm)/s] (1)
fl

where: ݂௛ -highest frequency of band, ݂௟ -lowest frequency of band

Root Mean Square value cannot be higher than set limit (in one of three bands). For this research, the following
limits are: low frequency range: 20 Anderons, medium frequency range: 12.6 Anderons, the high frequency range:
9.8 Anderons. Exceeding limit level in a band, indicates damage of a bearing. Each range correspond to other putative
defects.
In this research was used device STPPD with an electrodynamic sensor SG 4.3 of FAG company. STPPD is located
in Kielce University of Technology. To this system which is described in [10], was added vibrometer PSV-500, in
 Stanisław Adamczak et al. / Procedia Engineering 192 (2017) 971 – 975 973

such a way that the laser beam records the data at a point located 90° from the sensor SG 4.3. The head of the measuring
device STPPD with a laser measuring point PSV-500 is located on Fig. 1. Devices recorded the data
at the same moment of time. The sampling frequency was 25600 Hertz, and the measurements lasted 6 seconds. On
the basis of a vibration velocity signal, was calculate RMS value in three frequency bands. Moreover, Fourier
transform allowed to compare vibration signal in the frequency domain. Vibration measurements were performed on
a group of 10 bearings type 6204 with nitrile seals. After mounting the bearing on the rotating shaft, vibrations were
measured three times (measurements: A, B, C). After that, the bearing was mounted in reverse, and also vibrations
were measured three times (measurements D, E, F). Between measurements, the outer ring of a bearing was rotated
by 120 degrees. Described method of measurements can give 60 pairs of data. Figure 2 shows an exemplary
comparison of the spectra of registered signals.

Fig. 1. The head of measurement station STPPD used to compare two devices recording the speed of the vibration of rolling bearing. 1-examined
bearing; 2-the shaft; 3-spindle; 4-three-point holdfast; 5-electrodynamic sensor SG 4.3; 6-measuring point of vibrometer PSV-500

Fig.2. Vibration spectrum of rolling bearing from two different measurement devices.
a) electrodynamic sensor SG 4.3; b) vibrometer PSV-500.

The measurements enabled to compare the RMS values obtained by the sensor SG 4.3 and laser vibrometer PSV-
500 in three frequency bands. STPPD was chosen as a standard instrument. This device is used only to evaluate the
vibration level of rolling bearings. For each producer group was calculated statistical measures of the RMS value such
as: arithmetic mean and standard deviation. Confidence interval of a single measurement was given, too. Based on
comparative research of measuring devices proposed in [11] was calculated also:

x experimental relative method error for comparable instruments:

'Z p - 'Z a
w 'z = (2)
'Z a
974 Stanisław Adamczak et al. / Procedia Engineering 192 (2017) 971 – 975

where: 'Z p -RMS value of vibration for a given frequency range obtained by laser vibrometer [Anderon], 'Za -
RMS value of vibration for the same frequency range, obtained by sensor SG 4.3 [Anderon]

x method accuracy DM of analyzed measurement methods, which defines the dependency:

DP =| w 'z ± k p s |max (3)

where: w 'z -experimental relative method error for comparable instruments [-], k p -the expansion coefficient for
probability 0,95 determined from the normal distribution tables, s - the mean square deviation of a singular difference
[-]

x interdependence of RMS values using the Pearson correlation coefficient r, calculated for each of the three
frequency bands

cov(RMS E , RMSL ) (4)

r
V RMS V RMS
E L

where: cov(RMS E , RMSL ) -covariance of RMS values obtained from STPPD and PSV-500 [Anderon2],
V RMS E -standard deviation of RMS value obtained from STPPD [Anderon], V RMS - standard deviation of RMS value
L
obtained from PSV-500 [Anderon]
The results are presented in Table 1:

Table 1. Statistical comparison of the RMS value of ball bearings vibrations.

frequency band [Hz] 50-300 300-1800 1800-10000
measurement device STPPD PSV-500 STPPD PSV-500 STPPD PSV-500
arithmetic mean [Anderon] 10.77 10.46 4.93 3.92 2.35 3.25
mean square deviation of a single
3.18 3.28 0.95 0.64 0.79 1.05
measurement [Anderon]
confidence interval of a single
10.77±6.24 10.46±6.43 4.93±1.87 3.92±1.26 2.35±1.54 3.25±2.06
measurement (P=0.95) [Anderon]
wΔzmax 1 -0.06 1.68
experimental
relative method wΔzmin -0.52 -0.36 -0.14
error
™୼୸ 0 -0.2 0.42
variance of experimental relative
0.069 0.003 0.151
method error
mean square deviation of
0.26 0.06 0.39
experimental relative method error
confidence interval of experimental
0±0.51 -0.2±0.11 0.42±0.76
relative method error (P=0.95)
method accuracy DM [%] 51.84 31.09 117.95
Pearson correlation coefficient 0.74 0.92 0.59

3. Summary and conclusions

From the viewpoint of quality control of rolling bearings, it is no matter what device was used to measure the
vibrations. 10 bearings was tested, performing 120 measurements from two devices. Two of sixty vibrometer
measurements contained errors, that resulted the distortion of the spectrum. These data were not included in the
 Stanisław Adamczak et al. / Procedia Engineering 192 (2017) 971 – 975 975

statistical analysis. Given the accepted limits, measurements with STPPD showed no defective bearings.
Measurements with PSV-500 showed only one measurements that exceeded the allowable limit in the low frequency
band. In this case the RMS value was higher than the acceptable level of 0.44 Anderon. However this difference is
within the uncertainty calculated for individual measurement. Looking at the average values we see that in most
measurements electrodynamic sensor showed higher vibration level in the low and medium frequencies than
vibrometer. Given the range of high frequencies the average RMS value is higher for PSV-500 measurements. The
best measurement accuracy was obtained for medium frequency band. DP value for medium frequencies
is slightly in excess of allowable limits for devices which are measuring the geometrical structure of the surface.
Measurement accuracy for this devices should not exceed 25% (technical inspection) [11]. DP for low bandwidth
indicates a significant worse measurement accuracy, while for high-bandwidth result of over 100% is not acceptable.
The Pearson correlation coefficient indicates the correlation: high for frequency range 50-300Hz, very high for
frequency range 300-1800Hz, important for the frequency range 1800-10000Hz. Results indicate that the best
compatibility of the RMS value is for medium frequency band. This is due to the fact that the measuring instruments
were used to measure vibration velocity. These devices should be used for measuring the amplitude of the intermediate
frequency, where the amplitude of the devices measuring the acceleration and displacement
is poorly detectable [12]. RMS values of vibration velocity are the least compatibility in the high frequency band. We
should to do more detailed researches using the acceleration sensor, focusing primarily on the high frequencies.
One of the reason of errors and differences in measurements is that the surface of the outer ring is rounded. The
laser beam which act on the surface of the is not reflected completely and some of the photons does not return to
vibrometer. The outer surface of the bearing also has a metallic sheen, which sometimes caused a problem with the
detection of the measurement point by the PSV-500. Another source of errors could be that the laser vibrometer was
not connected with measuring system STPPD and can detect not only the vibration of the bearing, but also the rest of
the vibration of equipment. The sensor SG 4.3 vibrated together with the whole system STPPD. Another problem
could be that the devices collect data from two perpendicular directions. Bearing and the measuring system can vibrate
different in vertically and horizontally.
Vibrometer PSV-500 is not a typical device for measuring vibration of rolling bearings. However, study like this,
make it possible in future use contactless measuring devices in industrial practice to control the vibration of rolling
bearings. In further study should be a closer look at the complex influence of the laser beam with outer rings. Perhaps
to research like this, we need to choose vibrometer which characterized other laser beam parameters, or we need to
design a new system with head which is suitable for laser measurement of vibration. Research in this direction may
not only help to create project of new measurement system, but also help to develop new more effective parameters
which indicates the level of vibrations of produced bearings.

References

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