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Demodulation or envelope analysis | Power-MI

Aug 21, 2023 3:39 PM

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Rolling element bearings

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Demodulation or envelope
analysis
By Alfonso Fernandez

Introduction to maintenance

Vibration analysis fundamentals

Vibration sensors and measurement devices

Vibration standards

Imbalance and phase measurement

Low frequency fault diagnosis

Plain bearings

Gears

Rolling element bearings

Rolling element bearing failure detection techniques

Rolling element bearing components and failing frequencies

 Prediction of the bearing damage severity level

Typical bearing defects and spectral identification

Deterioration stages

Demodulation or envelope analysis

AC induction motors

Resonance

The use of demodulation or envelope analysis is an excellent complementary tool to

improve spectral analysis in the detection of defects in bearings and gearboxes. This
section describes what is demodulation and its applications.

What is demodulation?
Demodulation can be explained with the following example: suppose we have a
bearing with a defect in the outer race, as show in Figure 9.7. Each time a ball passes
over the defect, it generates a small impact that we hear as a "click". If, for example,
the BPFO (outer race failing frequency) of the bearing is 6.2, in other words 6.2 balls
pass over the defect during each shaft revolution, we will have 6.2 "clicks" per
revolution. If we measure the vibration in this bearing during a complete revolution of
the shaft we will obtain a waveform as represented in red color in Figure 9.15.

Figure 9.15: Waveform recorded on a defective bearing

When analyzing the vibration generated by this bearing (see Figure 9.16), we find
BPFO harmonic peaks, that is, at a frequency equal to 6.2 times the rotating speed of
the shaft. Such peaks are directly related to this defect in the bearing. However, the
vibration signal contains more information, as we can see in the standard spectrum,
and therefore the question arises: what is that other information?.

Figure 9.16: Standard spectrum

The impact generated when each ball of the bearing encounters a discontinuity is the
same the bearing does when hit with a hammer, similar to a bell that is hit with a
hammer. The structure, formed by the bearing, its support and the machine shaft, all
together act as a resonance bell. The sound it makes when a ball strikes the defect
corresponds to a certain frequency, called the natural frequency or resonance
frequency, which is typically a high frequency, in a range between 1 and 20 kHz
depending on the mass and the stiffness of the bearing, and is not only concentrated
on some particular frequencies, but on frequency bands. This resonance frequency is
a property of the structure and is not affected by how many times is hit or how
intense is the impact.

With this in mind, we can see from another point of view the vibration associated with
this defect: considering that the bearing or "bell" is all the time ringing and when the
defect is hit by the ball this simply sounds louder. This variation effect on the
amplitude of the natural frequency is known as amplitude modulation and can be
clearly seen in Figure 9.15, where the natural frequency acts as a carrier signal and
the BPFO signal acts as a modulated signal.

The demodulation process consists in obtaining from the original vibration of Figure
9.15 a new signal containing only the modulated signal, as shown in Figure 9.17. This
new signal is also known as the original signal envelope. The demodulated signal
spectrum is called the demodulation spectrum (see Figure 9.18) and contains
harmonic peaks at the "ringing" frequency (BPFO) of the original vibration signal.
Figure 9.17: Demodulated waveform

Figure 9.18: Demodulated spectrum

In summary, we can see in two different places and in two different ways the effects
of the balls hitting a defect in a race. One can be interpreted as the number of
impacts per revolution of the shaft: if 6.2 balls hit the defect by revolution of the shaft
we can see a peak in the vibration spectrum at a frequency of 6.2xRPM (BPFO).
Another way is to see it is in terms of resonance frequency of the bearing structure:
the bearing housing sound louder 6.2 times per revolution of the shaft and if we
demodulate the signal we will have a peak at 6.2xRPM (BPFO).

Therefore, there are essentially two different ways to get to that 6.2xRPM (BPFO),
which tells us that a problem is developing in the bearing.

Why use demodulation?

At this point the following question should be asked: if it is possible to identify
bearings problems with a technique, why should we bother about another
alternative?. The use of demodulation in fault diagnosis is extremely useful because
it provides the analyst with the following capabilities.

Readings with lots of random vibration

One reason to use demodulation is the existence of machines, such as pumps or
blowers, that due to their own operation generate a large amount of random vibration
that increases the background noise in the spectrum. This noise level can bury the
harmonics associated with the bearing failing frequencies in the standard spectrum.
In addition, the background noise produced by random vibration is often similar to
that caused by severe bearings wear, which may cause such wear to go unnoticed.
Demodulation can be extremely useful in this situation.

Very low speed readings

Demodulation is also very useful for diagnosing problems in rolling element bearings
of very low speed machines. If you have a machine that turns at 60 RPM (1 Hz) and
you want to find bearing frequencies in a range between 3xRPM and 10xRPM, the
frequency of those harmonics will be lower than 10 Hz. When working with vibration
spectrum in velocity, the necessary integration from acceleration into velocity acts as
a 10 Hz high pass filter, making these low frequencies almost undetectable.
Fortunately, the demodulated data will remain valid since the bearing resonance
frequency is at high frequency.

Early detection
Demodulation allows for the earliest possible detection of a bearing failure, since the
bearing failing frequencies that appear in the demodulation spectrum are the first
indicator of the begining of a bearing issue. Demodulation can detect such failing
frequencies before they become strong enough to appear in the standard spectrum.

Enhanced diagnostic capabilities

If a peak occurs at a given frequency in the demodulation spectrum, it is most likely a
bearing failing frequency. Then, can be expected that it will also appear in the
standard spectrum as the deterioration progresses. Conversely, if a strange peak,
non-synchronous with the shaft rotating frequency, appears in the standard
spectrum, and it also appears in the demodulation spectrum, then it is possible to be
sure that it is a bearing failing frequency. Finally, if we notice bearing failing
frequencies in the standard spectrum at two different machine locations and these
frequencies appear in the demodulation spectrum of one location but not in the other,
then we can conclude that the location at where it appears is the one that has a
bearing problem.
 

Why not just use demodulation?

Unfortunately, it is not possible to use exclusively the demodulation spectrum as the
only diagnostic tool because it does not allow to correlate of the amplitude of the
fault frequencies with the bearing damage condition. The reason for this is that as
the bearing deterioration progresses, the number of defects in the bearing increases,
causing the demodulated signal to become more and more random. Therefore, as the
bearing damage progresses, the harmonics in the demodulation spectrum will lose
amplitude, and may even disappear.

In addition, the peak level in the demodulation spectrum is simply relative to how
noisy the "clicks" are compared to the bearing background noise. This ratio, on its
own, is not sufficient to correlate with the severity of the bearing failure.

IN THIS PAGE:

Introduction
What is demodulation?
Why use demodulation?
Why not just use demodulation?

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