Spectral Correlation Feature Analysis for Rolling Bearing Fault
of wind turbine generator
Zuowei Pan1,*, Shuangyin Liang1,2, Yibing Liu1, Peng Liang1
1 School of Energy, Power and Mechanical Engineering, North China Electric Power University, Beijing, 102206, China.
E-mail: panzuoweipaper@163.com.
2 Beijing Energy Investment Holding Co., Ltd. , Beijing, 100022, China. E-mail:714394173@qq.com
Keywords: rolling, bearing, vibration, fault, cyclostationarity,
spectral correlation analysis
Abstract
Vibration signals of rolling bearing contain deterministic
components and random components, both of them reflect the
failure information of bearing. For qualitative diagnosis of
bearing faults using random components we need less
vibration signal data that increases the computational
efficiency for cyclostational analysis. In this paper we
propose to use logarithmic contour maps of spectral
correlation density firstly to reveal the change of weak
random components caused by bearing faults, and then to take
the slice at a resonance frequency to extract the fault
information. An analysis example with real bearing vibration
signals show that even in condition of lower frequency
resolution, spectral correlation density can realize the
demodulation of fault information, achieve the purpose of
fault feature extraction, and improve the calculation
efficiency.
1 Introduction
Without a speed gearbox, the structure of the direct driven
wind turbine is simple .But its rolling bearing undertakes
heavy load, so its probability to get failed will increase.
Furthermore, once the bearing breaks down and cant be
realized and dealt with in time, the contact between rotor and
stator of the generator may occur, and that will result in more
serious equipment damage consequences. Thus, its crucial to
reinforce the real time monitoring and fault diagnosis of
support spindle bearing to guarantee the safe and reliable
operation of the direct driven wind turbine generator.
The roller bearings are the main components in rotating
machines, widely used and failure rate high, so they are one
of major research objects in mechanical failure diagnosis
domain all the time. The main method of condition
monitoring and fault diagnosis for rolling bearing is
vibration monitoring, and with the relative mature
technology ,lots of research products have existed in both
at home and abroad [1]. Since mechanical equipment is
varied, the structure and the operation condition are
critically different, and this leads to complex bearing
vibration condition and the measured signal influenced
has been difficult and hot spot in research of bearing fault
diagnosis and in recent years ,many new methods appeared in
signal analysis field have been applied in bearing fault
diagnosis [2].
Rolling bearings vibration consists of bperiodic and
stochastic vibration generated by rotating and periodic impact
vibration generated by failure. They interact with each other
to produce a complex signal modulation phenomenon, so
demodulation analysis is the main method to extract the
bearing fault feature. Commonly used analysis methods based
on Hilbert transform demodulation, and the generalized
demodulation analysis have limitations for complex
modulation signal analysis, but cyclic steady analysis method
can suppress effects of the interference and extract the fault
information of the signal in a deeper level[3,4], so it has
become a hot spot for the research on the cyclostationary
characteristics of the bearing vibration signal and the method
of fault feature extraction[5-9]. But the large calculation and
the long calculation time are the problems that cyclostational
analysis exists. Since the fault information can also be
contained in stochastic component in the bearing vibration
signals [4], so a little data could be used to determine
originally whether there is fault according to the change of the
stochastic component, and this can improve computation
efficiency and real-time performance of fault diagnosis. This
paper discuss the influence of the change of stochastic
component generated by bearing fault on the signals
cyclostationary characteristics, and according to
characteristics that the energy of stochastic component is low
and the frequency distribution is wide, spectral related 3D
density logarithm high Fig. is used to display the change of
stochastic component resulted by fault and determine the
spectral correlation density slicing parts furtherly. The
comparison and analysis of the vibration signals from the
normal bearing and the inner ring pitting fault bearing is used
to carry out the qualitative analysis and verified the
application effect of the method.
2 Cyclostationary signal
Stochastic signal x(t) whose statistical characteristics are
periodic change of time is called cyclostationary signal and
if the signals autocorrelation function is periodic ,then its
called the two order cyclostationary signal. That is, the
autocorrelation function of the signal can be expressed as:
by cross interference terms and noise. Therefore, how to R x  t ,W  R x  t  T , W  (1)
eliminate the influence of interfering noise and extract feature
In the equation, T is the period. Expand Rx(t,) in (1) into
information that is sensitive to fault from the measured signal
Fourier series:
 f bearing. The fault characteristic frequency is related to the
Rx  t ,W 
m f
RxD W  e j 2SD t , D mT (2) size of the fault location and bearing structure and can be
obtained by calculating. In the actual process of the bearing,
In the equation, Fourier coefficient RxD W  is called cyclic there is relative sliding between the rolling body and the
autocorrelation function. bearing inner and outer ring, the fault characteristic frequency
1 T2 in a certain range have instantaneous changes.
RxD W  Rx  t ,W  e  j 2SD t dt
T -T 2
(3) The impact response of the bearing fault points can be
regarded as an exponential decay oscillation of a structural
The cyclic autocorrelation function is the sum of the two resonance frequency:
dimensional functions, and =m/T is called cycle frequency.
B  t  e at cos  2S f r t  (8)
If in a cyclic frequency alpha (alpha 0), cyclic
autocorrelation function RxD W  z 0 , it indicates that the
signal has second-order cyclostationarity in the cyclic
frequency.
The cyclic autocorrelation function can be expressed as[3]:
In the equation, fr is the damping natural frequency of the
structure and a is the attenuation coefficient related to the
damping. According to the signal analysis theory, the
periodic impact vibration x(t) of the fault bearing can be
regarded as the result of convolution of a single impulse
RxD W  x  t  W 2  x*  t  W 2  e j 2SD t (4) response B(t) and a burst function, which is as follows:
*
In the equation, x (t) is the complex conjugate of x(t),and x  t  B  t 
AnG  t  nT   u  t 
n
< is the calculation of average. (9)
The Fourier transform of the cyclic autocorrelation function is n An B  t  nT   u  t 
called the cyclic spectral density function, or the spectral In the equation, An is the amplitude of the nth vibration
correlation function: response, and the u(t) is a stationary Gauss noise with zero
f
PxD  f  f Rx W  e
D  j 2S ft
dW (5) mean.
Fig. 1 is the peak value distribution of the spectrum
The cyclic spectral density function is a two dimensional correlation function of the vibration signal of the fault bearing
function which regards frequency f and cyclic frequency as
the independent variable. The relationship of the change
between the cyclic spectrum density and the other
independent variable is obtained by fixing one of the
independent variables, and thats can also be called slicing.
The cycle frequency energy distribution can be obtained by
slicing .to cyclic spectrum density along the frequency axis.
The slices along the axis of cyclic frequency reflect delay
cycle changes of the signal in the current cycle frequency,
namely the cyclic frequency delay power spectrum density.
Similar to the classical spectrum estimation, the methods of
cyclic spectral density estimation mainly consist of auto
correlation method and the periodic chart method, and the
accuracy and efficiency of the auto correlation method are
very low. The cyclic period graph method is used more
widely in engineering application, and its basic expression is:
1 D D
in f plane in formula (9). PxD  f  is the axis symmetric
form and only the first quadrant (the time interval) of the f
plane is drawn in the picture. In intersection of diagonal lines
of band peak near the resonance frequency along the
frequency axis f and band peak near the resonance frequency
along the cyclic frequency axis , the spectral correlation
function peaks, and the triangle area of resonance near the
f axis and axis(the frequency of axis is twice as large as
that of f axis ). Fault diagnosis can be carried out according
to the characteristics of triangular resonance region of the
spectral correlation function. The same information of the
signal demodulated can be obtained by f axis and the axis
near the resonance region.
PxD  f  X T f  X T * f  (6)
T 2 2
In the equation, XT(f) is the Fourier transform of the
measurement signal xT(t) with finite length.

3 Cyclostational analysis for vibration of

rolling bearings
The vibration of rolling bearings is derived from the
movement of the rolling body and the inner and outer ring.
Fig. 1 The spectrum correlation function of the vibration
Under normal condition, the vibration signal is characterized
signal of the fault bearing
by stationary random signal. If there is partial fault on bearing,
in the rotation process, whenever the fault point contacts, it
will produce impact excitation, resulting in periodic impulse
response in the vibration signal and the corresponding
frequency known as the fault characteristic frequency of
4 Fault bearing analysis case for a direct drived It can be seen that although the normal unit and unit faults of
wind turbine time-domain signal difference was not significant, but in a
number of bands, spectral difference is bigger, especially the
most pronounced energy changes in the 240-300Hz frequency
4.1 Situation description range compared to normal units and units fault vibration
signal spectrum. In addition, whether in normal or fault state,
A certain type of 1.5MW direct drived wind turbine is treated there are some side band components in the spectrum, but the
as the object to analyse the bearing fault vibration signal edge of the fault unit is increased.
features. This type of units is the outer rotor structure (as
shown in Fig. 1), and regulated by variable speed and pitch 10
0

normal point 1
and wind wheels working speed is from 16.6 rpm to 19 fault point 1
rpm.
The vibration signal test of two units of the same type is 10
-2

APSD ((m/s2)2/Hz)
carried out, and one of them has no fault, and the other exists
fault in the rear bearing of the rotor shaft . Install two
piezoelectric acceleration sensors near parts of the rear 10
-4

bearing on the unit of the fixed shaft (stator) , measure the

vibration signals of the unit under different load and speed,
connect the signal to test system ,and after 10
-6

amplification ,filtering ,convert them into digital signals to

store in a computer. A set of analysis examples are given 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
below. frequency (Hz)

Fig. 2 shows the vibration signal of the 1 measuring points on Fig. 3 Comparison of power spectrum of vibration signal
the normal and faulty units. The above one picture is the
normal signal of measuring point 1 and following one picture 4.2 Spectral correlation analysis
is the fault vibration signal of the measuring point 1. The
The average cycle diagram method is used to estimate the
working speed of the unit is 17 rpm and signal time length
spectrum correlation function of normal and fault bearing
displayed is 10 seconds, which is about the time that the
vibration signal. In order to improve the computation
wind wheel rotate 3 laps costs. The signal is decamped and its
efficiency, the fewer data points are calculated (1024 points).
sampling rate is 1000Hz. Its can be seen from the graph that
Fig. 4 shows logarithmic contour map of the normal and the
the difference between the vibration signals of normal and
fault bearing spectrum correlation function. The
fault units isnt obvious, and both of them are characterized
cyclostationary characteristic of the stochastic component
by a typical stationary random vibration and amplitude
with low energy in the vibration signal is observed by using
range of vibration is also very similar. There is no obvious
the log display . Compare the two graphs, it can be seen that
impact component in the vibration signal of the fault unit,
although the analysis data is short, the frequency resolution is
which indicates that the bearing fault is not serious.
low, but the change of the fault still can be seen the spectrum
correlation function. The low energy components in the
a) signal normal point 1
4 vibration signal are concentrated in the diagonal band of the
spectrum, and form a triangle resonance region near the axes.
ampl. (m/s2)

2
0 For example, in normal condition , triangular resonance
-2 region is not clear in the cyclic frequency axis . However
-4 when bearing exists fault, spectral correlation density
0 2 4 6 8 10
time (s) function show very clear resonance band in the vicinity of
b) signal fault point 1 the cyclic frequency, and the resonance region in the normal
4
state is very weak, that failure cycle incentive for the
ampl. (m/s2)

2
0
resonance vibration response significantly affected.
-2
-4
0 2 4 6 8 10
time (s)

Fig. 2 the comparison of bearing vibration signal

Fig. 3 shows the comparison of power spectrum of vibration
signal of normal and fault units. The above and the
following Fig.s represent the measuring point 1 and 2
separately. It can be seen that the frequency spectrum of the
vibration of the direct drive generators stator shaft is very
complicated. It has strong frequency components in the 0-
400Hz range displayed. In some frequency, there is prominent
peak and there exists several resonance frequency bands.

Fig. 4 The comparison of spectral correlation function of the
vibration signal
Fig. 5 shows the slicing contrast of the cycle spectral
density of the normal and fault signal in the cyclic
frequency of the =550Hz. Under normal condition, there is
no prominent in the frequency range, which shows the two
order cyclostationary characteristics are very weak at the
cyclic frequency. while the slicing under fault condition
peaks in the low frequency section, where the peak is the
result of demodulation to the band components near the
signal resonance band of f=2100Hz . Although the resolution
of the frequency that can be calculated is low, and
demodulation component cannot accurately identify the
characteristic frequency of fault, the slicing near the
resonance frequency can clearly reflect the change resulted by
fault and can effectively characterize it.
Fig. 5 Contrast of slicing at the cyclic frequency
Fig. 6 shows the slice contrast at the cyclic frequency of
=0Hz of the normal and fault signals cycle spectral density
function. The slice of a cycle spectral density function at the
cyclic frequency of =0Hz is theriotically the same as the
auto power spectral density, as shown in Fig. 3.
Fig. 6 Contrast of slicing at the cyclic frequency
4.3 Fault feature extraction
Previous analysis results show that the low frequency part of
the resonance region slice of the spectrum correlation
function is able to clearly reflect the changes caused by the
fault. Take the normal signal and fault signal, calculate the
average power density of the spectral correlation function
slices in the analyzed frequency area (0-400Hz area in Fig. 5)
and treat it as the characteristic value. The results are shown
in left side in Fig. 7. As a comparison, the right side in Fig. 7
shows the effective value of the normal signal and the fault
signal. It can be seen that the effective value of the faulty
vibration signal is increased, but it is not obvious. However,
the frequency averaged power density of spectral correlation
function slice increased obviously, which represents that its
more sensitive to characterize the fault state and can
distinguish the fault state from normal state more clearly, and
this can improve the accuracy of fault diagnosis of rolling
bearing.
Fig. 7 Comparison of characteristic value
5 Conclusion
In this paper, the spectral correlation characteristics of rolling
bearing fault vibration signals are studied, and the differences
of the spectral correlation function of the vibration signal of
normal and fault units are compared and analysed. Following (2003).
conclusions can be drawn: [9]. Yang Longxing, Jia Minping, Xu Feiyun, Zhong Binglin.
(1) The excitation of partial pitting failure of the bearing Cyclic Moment Diagnosis for Gear Crack Faults,
can result in the increase of energy of the vibration signal China Mechanical Engineering, 14, pp. 1621-1623,
in some resonance frequency band , and the change can be (2003).
clearly reflected by the logarithmic spectrum correlation
function chart. Its more sensitive to change caused by fault
state and can improve the accuracy of fault diagnosis of
rolling bearing to treat the average power density of the
spectral correlation function slices in the low frequency area
as the characteristic value.
(2) In order to meet the basic requirements of the bearing
fault diagnosis and qualitative analysis of the fault, the shorter
vibration signal with high sampling rate can be used to make
spectrum correlation function analysis, and this can also
clearly reflect the change of resonance band caused by
bearing fault and realize the demodulation analysis of fault in
formation, which can improve the analysis efficiency, and
increase the real-time of the analysis. However, due to the
less data and low frequency resolution, accurate characteristic
frequency of fault cant be got, so it can't make a judgment to
the bearing fault type.

6 Acknowledgements
This work was supported by Beijing Energy Investment
Holding Co., Ltd.

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