Condition monitoring of rolling element bearing using vibration analysis

Abstract

In this competitive business world, for industries to thrive and succeed, they must minimize expenditure, a large proportion of which is consumed by rolling element bearings maintenance cost. Apart from this, rolling element bearings failure and the resulting production losses are a major detriment to the economic viability of industrial plants. Ultimately, the desire is to ensure that the rolling element bearings operate smoothly and give an optimum level of productivity. In today’s world of precision tools, high-tech software and diagnostic equipment, condition monitoring of rolling element bearings by vibration analysis is the most efficient and reliable method for bearing maintenance. However, there is a bottleneck in this respect, at this moment, these high-tech software and diagnostic equipment are very expensive to own, in addition specialized training is needed to analyze the frequency spectrum. To make the matter worst, a highly trained and experience vibration analyst is hard to find when in need. Small and medium industries are not capable of bearing such condition monitoring expenditure. Thus a simplified and less expensive system is sought for rolling element bearing condition monitoring in this report. Based on the parameters for the traditional Time Domain Analysis like RMS value of vibration acceleration and Crest Factor a new condition indicator has been proposed. This new condition indicator has been established through experimental study of rolling element bearings under different environment and shows promising results in predicting incipient damage in rolling element bearings.