In industrial applications the purpose of rotating machinery analysis is to assess the condition of

operating machinery in order to determine what repairs are needed, without shutdown and
disassembly of the machine It should indicate also when this repair should take place. If
excessive wear is detected the machine can be removed from service before it fails. Such
analysis can ensure safer operation of machinery by avoiding wear induced catastrophic failure,
and make operating less costly through better management of the repair project .This analysis
can be performed in the time, frequency or order domain. Using time domain analysis, one is
primarily interested in overall vibration levels. Maximum allowable amplitude levels are
determined based on prior experience. Frequency domain analysis reveals the frequency content
of the vibration signal. The dominant frequencies are often related to a particular machine
component or process in the system and can thus aid in determining the severity of the signal.
Order domain analysis relates the vibration signal to the rotating speed of the shaft instead of an
absolute frequency base. In this way, vibration components that are proportional to multiples of
the running speed can be easily identified
Order tracking requires sampling of the vibration signal at constant angular
increments and hence at a rate proportional to the shaft speed. Classically, this has been
accomplished using analog instrumentation to vary the sampling rate proportional to a
tachometer signal; usually a keyphasor pulse. For this procedure, two pieces of specialized
equipment are required. a ratio synthesiser and an anti-aliasing tracking filter Digital methods
have been introduced which resample a constant t signal to provide the desired constant
data, based on keyphasor pulses . This method is referred to as computed order tracking because
it uses numerical techniques to extract speed-normalised data from the vibration signal that has
been obtained through traditional sampling methods. The purpose of this paper is to investigate
the various factors that affect the accuracy of the computed order tracking method. The primary
focus is on how the various assumptions made in using this procedure affect the spectral
accuracy and level of the noise floor. Minimisation of the noise floor is important because faint
vibration signals need to be identified in the presence of stronger ones rather than having them
buried in noise.

TRADITIONAL MEANS OF ORDER TRACKING

Traditional order tracking directly samples the analog vibration signal at constant shaft
increments (i.e. ) using analog instrumentation. This normally includes a ratio synthesizer and
an anti-aliasing tracking filter. A frequency counter may also be included to monitor the shaft
speed. A schematic of this arrangement is shown in Fig. 3.1. The ratio synthesizer generates a
signal proportional to the shaft speed of the machine. This output is used to control the sampling
rate and the cut-off frequency of the analog tracking filter, a low-pass filter with an adjustable
cut-off frequency. Once a specified block of data sampled at constant (angle domain samples)
has been obtained, a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) is calculated resulting in an order spectrum.
The associated cost and complexity of the equipment restrict its use. The analog approach is also
prone to error. The equipment used is known to have problems following rapidly changing shaft
speeds.

Fig. 3.1 Traditional order tracking

COMPUTED ORDER TRACKING

The computed order tracking method (COT) first records the data at constant t increments,
using conventional hardware, and then resamples this signal to provide the desired constant
data, based on a keyphasor signal

Fig. 3.2 Computed order tracking

This keyphasor signal is typically a once per shaft revolution event that is used to measure the
shaft speed and is the reference for measuring the vibration phase angle .In contrast to the
traditional method, COT is almost fully digital. Shown in Fig. 3.2, the vibration signal passes
through a fixed frequency low-pass filter, and is sampled at constant increments of time, t. To
this point, the method resembles traditional frequency analysis more than order tracking.
However, once the signal has been sampled, it is resampled by software using the tachometer (or
keyphasor) signal to extract signal amplitudes at constant . In Fig. 3.2, the item labeled signal
analyser represents whatever device is used for data acquisition and signal processing. This could
be a specialised piece of equipment or a high-speed digital computer with data acquisition
hardware. The analog low-pass filter is often built into the signal analyser or data acquisition
system, and is inexpensive. In addition, it typically has better characteristics than its tracking
filter counterpart because the design of the latter compromises the effectiveness of the filter at a
specific frequency in order to improve its performance over a wide range of frequencies. In
contrast, a single-frequency filter can be optimised to perform extremely well at one particular
frequency. Figure 3.3 illustrates a swept sine signal sampled by a constant increment in the time
base (constant t). This data must then be resampled at constant increments of shaft angle
(constant ). The timing of the resample points is based on the duration between available
keyphasor pulses. In this example, the resamples are shown at six points per revolution. Note that
the resamples fall in the same place on each wave (i.e. peak, trough) independent of where the
actual time-based samples were taken during resampling, two distinct estimation processes

occur. The first involves the correct placement of the resamples on the independent (time) axis.
This is the process of sample time determination. Determining the precise resample times is
critical for the interpolation process; without precision at this stage, the interpolation process has
no hope of consistent accuracy. The second estimation places the resamples on the dependent
(amplitude) axis. This is the interpolation process.
To determine the resample times, it will be assumed that the shaft is undergoing constant
angular acceleration. With this basis, the shaft angle,

, can be described by a quadratic equation

of the following form.

t b0 b1t b2 t 2

(3.1)
The unknown coefficients b0, b1 and b2 are found by fitting three successive keyphasor arrival

times (t1, t2 and t3), which occur at known shaft angle increments,

. For example, if there is

2

one keyphasor on the shaft, these increments would occur at intervals of

radians. This

yields the three following conditions,

t 0
t
t 2

(3.2)

The arrival times, t1 through t3 are known from the sampling of the keyphasor pulse signal.
Substituting these conditions into equation (3.1), and arranging in a matrix format gives,
0 1 t1 t1

2
1 t 2 t 2
2
2

1 t 3 t 3
2

b0

b1
b
2

This set of equations is then solved for the unknown (bi) components. Once these values
are known, equation (3.1) may be solved for t, yielding

(3.3)

1
2b2

4b2 b0 b1 b1
2

(3.4)

From this equation, any value of

between

and

may be entered and the corresponding

time, t will be returned. This forms the basis of the resampling algorithm. The data are resampled
after the arrival of each new keyphasor pulse. This most recent keyphasor pulse sets the arrival
time of t2, while the two previous keyphasor arrival times determine t 1 and t2. To avoid overlap
in the sampling, the resample times are calculated only over the center half of the interval
(t1 . . .t3) .

Fig. 3.3 Comparison of data sampling schemes (uniform t vs. uniform )

This condition imposes a limit on

that can be used in equation (3.4).

3

2
2

(3.5)

Normally the resampling of shaft angles is performed discretely such that,

(3.6)

Where is the desired angular spacing between resamples. Substituting this expression into
equation (3.5) yields the following values of k (k is a positive integer)


3
k
2
2

(3.7)

So finally, the resampling equation (3.4) becomes

t

1
2b2

4b2 k b0 b1 b1
2

(3.8)
Once the resample times are calculated the corresponding amplitudes of the signal are calculated
by interpolating between the sampled data using various methods .After the amplitudes are
determined the resampled data are transformed from the angle domain to the order domain by
means of an FFT.
Bearing Fault Orders
A faulty rolling bearing usually emit the following main frequencies:
FTF - (Fundamental Train Frequency) frequency emitted by a faulty cage
BPFO (Ball Pass Frequency of the Outer Race) frequency emitted by a rolling element
bearing when it impacts a superficial defect in the outer race;
BPFI (Ball Pass Frequency of the Inner Race) frequency emitted by a rolling element bearing
when it impacts a superficial defect in the inner race;
BSF (Ball Spin Frequency) frequency emitted when a rolling element bearing with a
superficial defect impacts the inner or outer races. The frequency spectrum of a faulty rolling
bearing includes not only the inner and outer races rotation frequencies but also the harmonics
corresponding to the fault frequency and sidebands as a result of the amplitude modulation. Such
sidebands are related to the cage frequency rotation or to the inner or outer races frequency
rotation.
When the outer race is stationary the mathematical model to evaluate the defect
frequencies can be written as follows,

f
d cos
1

2
D p

FTF

BPFO

Nb f
2

BPFI

Nb f
2

BSF

1 d cos

D p

1 d cos

D p

Dp f

1 d cos

d
Dp

BDF 2 BSF

(3.5)

Table 1 Bearing defect orders

Type of fault
Inner race defect
Outer race defect
Ball defect
FTF

Order
5.4
3.56
4.75
0.4

Experimental Setup
Experiments are conducted using Spectra Quest machine fault simulator system, where the
bearing fault test rig is pre-installed. The alignment of test rig is done by using PRFTECHNIK
OPTALIGN smart RS5 laser alignment system (Fig. 4)

Fig. 3.4. Laser alignment system.

Fig.3.5. MFS (Machine fault simulator) system with laser

vibrometer.

The test rig (Fig. 2) consists of a three phase induction HP induction motor (Marathon). A
VFD-S controller is installed to control the speed of rotor shaft of the motor. The rotor shaft is
connected to the 1 driven shaft with the help of a jaw coupling (Lovejoy). Two aluminum
pedestals are used to mount two bearings, one at the far side of the motor and other near the
motor. Generally, a good bearing is mounted on the near side and a faulty bearing is mounted on
the far side to accommodate the sensors. A 5kg loader disc is attached to the rotor shaft at the far
side of the motor to provide a preload on the shaft.

Fig.3.6. Attachment for finding angular speed of rotor shaft.

All the experiments are performed with the help of ball bearings (Rexnord MB-ER-16K). In
some ball bearings intentional faults are generated for analysis. A rotary encoder having 30
reflecting and 30 non-reflecting parts is used for instantaneous angular velocity measurement. A

laser vibrometer (PDV-100, Polytec) is used to measure the velocity of pedestal on which the
faulty bearing is mounted. A NI- USB-6211 16 channel 16 bit resolution A/D card is used to
obtain the velocity signal of pedestal as well as the pulse signal from the laser-encoder
attachment.

Results
Order plots are obtained using the computed order tracking algorithm. Data is collected for
each fault of the bearing and stored in a file. Stored data is resampled in the angle domain using

matlab

program

Fig. 3.6 Order tracking of

bearing faults

Ball Defect

150

xFTF

100
50
60

Amplitude

0
40

Outer Race Defect

2

20
80

BPFO

10

12

Inner Race Defect

600

40

Order of Shaft rotation

BPFI
10

12

20
0

10

12

Which is based on computed order tracking algorithm and results are as shown in fig.(3.6). As
we can see from the plot itself that the different faults are identified using the order tracking.

Rotating Machine

Frequency counter

Keyphasor signal

Vibration signal

Ratio synthesiser

Analog tracking filter

Sample rate control

Filtered vibration signal

Signal Analyser