Amplitude and frequency demodulation analysis for fault diagnosis of planet bearings

Abstract The vibration signals of planet bearings feature more complex amplitude modulation and frequency modulation (AM-FM) than those of fixed-axis bearings, due to the effects of time-varying vibration transfer path, load zone passing and time-varying angles between gear pair mesh lines of action and impact force vector, in addition to that of bearing fault. Their Fourier spectra have a complex sideband structure, leading to difficulty in feature extraction and fault diagnosis. In order to address this issue, a joint amplitude and frequency demodulation analysis method is proposed to reveal the fault features, by considering the modulation characteristics. To thoroughly understand planet bearing vibration characteristics, the explicit equations for amplitude and frequency demodulated spectra of outer race, rolling element and inner race fault cases are derived, and the fault symptoms are summarized respectively. The signal is firstly decomposed into intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) by empirical mode decomposition (EMD), thus meeting the mono-component requirement by instantaneous frequency calculation. Then a sensitive component with the instantaneous frequency fluctuating around the resonance frequency is chosen for further frequency demodulation analysis. Finally, planet bearing fault can be diagnosed by matching the peaks identified in amplitude and frequency demodulated spectra with the theoretical fault characteristic frequencies. The proposed method is validated with both numerical simulated and lab experimental signal analyses.