Gearbox Fault Diagnosis Through Time Synchronous Averaging of Vibration Signature

In a geared rotor system, fault diagnosis plays an important role in condition-based monitoring to enhance the machinery life. The present investigation focused on the development of fault diagnosis of geared system based on the vibration signature analysis. An experimental setup has been developed to replicate various gear faults for vibration signature monitoring. The prominent faults that are practically induced in the setup are: spalling, one tooth missing and lack of lubrication. As modulation causes difficulty in identifying the defect, the technique of time synchronous averaging (TSA) has been used to filter the signals and remove the noises to effectively diagnose the occurrence of various types of gear faults. The gear faults have also been simulated using MATLAB, where both healthy and faulty gear pairs are modeled and analyzed using TSA. The numerical results have been validated with corresponding experimental results. The benefits of using TSA in identifying different types of the gear faults have been finally discussed. The work is expected to be beneficial to the machinery’s maintenance in terms of gear fault identification as well as contribute to the work happening in the ongoing Industry 4.0.