STUDIES ON VIBRATION ANALYSIS OF ROLLING

ELEMENT BEARINGS WITH LOCALIZED DEFECTS

Achintya Choudhury

Bhartiya Skill Development University

Jaipur India
 Rolling Element Bearings

• Bearings are highly engineered, precision-made components that enable

machinery to move at extremely high speeds and carry remarkable loads with
ease and efficiency.
• Bearings are found in applications ranging from small hand-held devices to
heavy duty industrial systems.
 Bearing Defects

Localized defects Distributed defects

i) Cracks i) Surface Waviness

ii) Pits ii) Misaligned races
iii) Spalls iii) Off-size rolling
elements
Cause : Fatigue on Cause : Manufacturing
rolling surfaces errors, Wear
Localized defects in bearing elements
Applied Load

IR
Load Zone
OR
REs
 Vibration Signal Processing

1.Time-domain approach 2. Freq.-domain approach

3. TF domain approach

Stationary Signals
Non-Stationary Signals
 Two Studies

• Extraction of diagnostic features from a noisy signal using a coupled

method of wavelet transform and FFT analysis

• Detection of localized defects on different bearing elements under

dynamic loads
 Vibratory Model of Bearing

Governing equations:
 M  y   B  y    K  y   Q
 Q = Excitation vector with excitations due to
defects on bearing elements
 Block Diagram for Generation of Simulated Signal

Simulated signal y   y f . yq  * ybs  n t 

yf = Impulses due to defects ybs = Response function for bearing vibratory elements
yq = Radial load nt = Additive noise
 Frequency B – spline Wavelet
m
  f t 
 (t )  f b sin c  b   e i 2 f c t
  m 
m = Integer Order

fb = Frequency bandwidth

fc = Central frequency

1 x=0

sin c( x )   sin x
 x otherwise
Flowchart for Defect Detection
 Detection of Inner Race Defect

Vibration response of NJ305 bearing with defect on the

inner race at 45 Hz (a) Without noise (b) with noise level Wavelet coefficients of the noisy vibration signal

Maximum Wavelet coefficients Retained Wavelet coefficients over the threshold level

Frequency spectrum of retained

Wavelet coefficients

Peaks at inner race defect freq.

with sidebands at shaft freq.
Experimental setup
Defect Detection from Experimental Signal
 Dynamic Load on Bearing
Applied Load Applied Load

Static Load

Fr  t   W

Harmonic Load

Fr  t   W  A cos ( 2 f s t )
Load Zone

Random Load

Fr  t   W  R (t )
 Dynamic Load on Bearing

Modulation caused by dynamic load often results in additional

spectral components

Load Zone
Signal Analysis

Simulated Signal in time domain

Signal is high pass filtered to remove

low frequency disturbances

High pass filtered signal is band-pass filtered

around a prominent resonant frequency

Envelope detection using Hilbert

Transform
Signal Analysis

Spectrum of Vibration response for

Outer race defect with harmonic load

Spectrum of Vibration response for

Inner race defect with harmonic load

Spectrum of Vibration response for

Roller defect with harmonic load

Spectrum of Vibration response for

Inner race defect with random load
Experimental Set-up
Experimental Results

Raw Signal
(a) Time (b) Frequency

High pass filtered Signal

(c) Time (d) Frequency

Band-pass filtered Signal

(e) Time (f) Frequency
 Experimental Results

Spectrum for outer race defect

Envelope in time domain

Spectrum for Inner Race defect

Theoretical Vs. Experimental Spectra for Outer Race Defect

(a) (a)

(b) (b)

(c) (c)

Frequency spectra for NJ 305 bearing with outer race defect at 2840 r.p.m, W = 196.2 N; and (a) Ah = 0 (b) Ah = W (c) Ah = 2W
 Theoretical Vs. Experimental Spectra for Inner Race Defect

(a) (a)

(b) (b)

(c)
(c)

Frequency spectra for NJ 305 bearing with inner race defect at 2975 r.p.m, W = 196.2 N and (a) Ah = 0 (b) Ah = W (c) Ah = 2W
Theoretical Vs. Experimental
Spectral Components
for Inner Race Defect
 Publications from these studies
1. Paliwal D., Choudhury A. and Govardhan T., Detection of Bearing Defects from Noisy
Vibration Signals using A Coupled Method of Wavelet Analysis followed by FFT
Analysis, Journal of Vibration Engineering & Technologies, vol. 5, no. 1, 2017, pp 21 - 34.
 
2. Govardhan T., Choudhury A. and Paliwal D., Vibration analysis of a rolling element bearing
with localized defect under dynamic radial load, Journal of Vibration Engineering &
Technologies, vol. 5, no. 2, 2017, pp 165 - 175.

3. Govardhan T. and Choudhury A., Fault Diagnosis of Dynamically Loaded Bearing with
Localized Defect Based on Defect-Induced Excitation, Journal of Failure Analysis and
Prevention, Vol. 19, no. 3, 2019, pp 844 – 857.
Thank you