Bearing Envelope Analysis Window Selection

Using Spectral Kurtosis Techniques

Eric Bechhoefer
Lead System Engineer NRG Systems Hinesburg, VT 05461

Praneet Menon
Mechanical Diagnostics & Tools Team Manager Goodrich SIS Vergennes, VT 05491

Michael Kingsley
Mechanical Diagnostics and Health Management Lead Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation, Stratford, CT 06614
AbstractEnvelope Analysis is a well-known signal processing technique for bearing fault detection. However, improper window selection can result in poor fault detection performance. Using a known fault data set, we quantify the performance of spectral kurtosis (SK) and envelope kurtosis (EK) as a technique for setting an optimal frequency and bandwidth window for the envelope analysis. We establish a measure of effectiveness (MOE): the correlation of fault energy with total spall length. With this MOE, we evaluate the ability of SK/EK to predict the optimal envelope analysis window. Bearing Envelope Analysis; Spectral Freiquency/Bandwidth Selection; Inner Race Energy Kurtosis;

KHz to 20-25 KHz) resulted in fault detection and indicated a slow progression of fault over a period of months [5]. While post analysis is helpful, standardization of a method or practice to optimally select a window is desirable. From a certification perspective, the certifying body requires as a minimum, indirect evidence that the system will detect the fault. From an operations and maintenance perspective, logistics planning and profitability is directly related to a reduction in unscheduled maintenance. Given the need to set window frequency/bandwidth without the experience of measuring from a damaged components, is there a way to select better windows? Boskoski and Urevc [6] used spectral kurtosis (SK) in order to determine the best window in order to determine the condition of a test gearbox with seeded faults. This method of SK was first proposed by Dwyer [7] as a method to distinguish between transient and stationary sinusoidal signal with Gaussian noise. We wish to quantify the performance of SK to find an appropriate window by using a nominal bearing. Using SK in the selection the frequency/bandwidth window, we apply this window to a set of 9 bearings with measured damage. First, we describe the BEA algorithm. We then establish a measure of effectiveness (MOE), which allows one to quantify the performance of a given window against another window. The MOE is evaluated using classical bearing defect calculations from the BEA algorithm as well as Sikorsky Aircraft Corporations average energy algorithm. Finally a comparison of SK to envelope kurtosis (the kurtosis of the windows envelope prior to estimating the spectrum) is made. II. THE ENVELOPE ALGORITHM Bearing Envelope Analysis is based on demodulation of high frequency resonance associated with bearing element impacts. For rolling element bearings, when the rolling elements strike a local fault on the inner or outer race, or a fault on a rolling element strikes the inner or outer race, an impact is produced. These impacts modulate a signal at the associated bearing pass frequencies, viz. Cage Pass Frequency (CPF), Ball Pass Frequency Outer Race (BPFO), Ball Pass Frequency Inner Race (BPFI), and Ball Fault Frequency (BFF). This modulation

I.

INTRODUCTION

Many condition based maintenance (CBM) systems employ bearing envelope analysis for the detection of bearing fault. This technique is preferable to simple order tracking or spectral analysis in complex gearboxes, as the shaft rates and gear mesh tones associated with the gearbox are orders of magnitudes larger than the bearing frequency tones. Essentially, at the point where a bearing frequency tone can be detected in spectral analysis, the bearing is heavily damaged and it is likely collateral damage has occurred to other components in the gearbox itself. A recent review of wind turbine gearbox failures indicated that 20% of planetary gear failures were a result of oil contamination from bearing failures [1]. Bearing envelope analysis (BEA) is an amplitude demodulation technique, based on the high frequency excitation from quasi cyclo-stationary derived impulses due to bearing component fault. Industrial monitoring systems have employed these techniques since 1977 [2], with a number of system improvements being implemented since then [3]. The successful implementation of BEA is dependent on proper selection of the frequency/bandwidth window. An example of sub-optimal window selection was reported in [4]. After a teardown analysis of an oil cooler fan, the bearing was found to be damaged by corrosion. The installed health and usage monitoring system (HUMS) did not indicate any bearing faults. Reprocessing of the time domain data recorded by the HUMS (moving the frequency/bandwidth window from 13-18

occurs through the addition of energy (from the impact) to the signal, which also increases the measured RMS. Additionally, the impact excites resonance at one or more of the bearing fundamental frequency modes. This results in amplitude modulation of the resonant frequency in the time ! domain. Ideally, one wishes to filter around the bearing resonance. Then the signal is enveloped by using the Hilbert transform (e.g. taking the spectrum of the amplitude of the analytic signal). The analytic signal xa(t), is complex, composed of the real part of the original signal, x(t), and the imaginary part, which is the Hilbert transform of x(t):

cos( ft ) x ( t ) + isin( ft ) x ( t ) "LPF = x a ( t )

(6)

Multiplying x(t) by sin(ft) changes the phase of x(t) by /2, as per (3). This also has advantages in that, after low pass filtering, one can decimate x(t) without aliasing and further reduce the order of operations. B. Other Bearing Algorithms While the envelope algorithm as described, measures the energy associated with a given bearing component, one can similarly look at average energy as a general indicator of bearing health. For example, Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation has implemented an average of the spectral energy measurement that is currently fielded in the S-92 HUMS system. Alternatively, one can measure the average energy of the envelope. These two general bearing health algorithms, in addition to the bearing fault energy (from the inner race), will be evaluated. III. THE MEASURE OF EFFECTIVENESS The data set consisted of ten bearings, the first being baseline/nominal, and the other nine having a notch punched into the inner race to initiate a fault. Each of the nine bearing was periodically run under load, then inspected, reassembled and run till the next inspection. A total of 5 inspections were conducted on each bearing. Prior to each inspection, an acquisition was made (250,000 data points sampled at 100 KHz). At each inspection, the total spall length was measured (figure 1).

x a (t ) = x (t ) + iH (x (t ))
where

(1)

H (x (t )) = 1 2"

& x (t ) t # $ d$
#%

(2)

The Fourier transform of the analytic signal xa(t) is then:

2X ( f ), f > 0 ! X f = X f + iH x t = { X f , f = 0 ( ) ( ( )) ( ) a( ) 0, f < 0

(3)

The imaginary part of the analytic signal is identical to the real part, except for the phase being delayed by /2. Note that the spectrum of the analytic signal has spectrum only for the positive frequency of x(t). This definition allows the efficient computation of the Hilbert transform using the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) to derive xa(t), then taking the inverse FFT or equation 3. The envelope of analytic signal in (1) is calculated by:

Figure 1 Example of Spall Propagation (4) Figure 1 is an example of the propagation of the fault over time. The red dot is the relative size of ball element. For a prognostics health management system, not only must the system detect the fault, but it must measure some metric relating to change of state, such as trend or condition indicator rate of change. In general, the measured energy at ball pass frequency inner race (BPFI) was 2 orders of magnitude larger for the faulted bearings then the baseline bearing. However, we wanted to reflect an MOE such that a large spall would be related to large measured energies. It was observed that there was a linear relationship between spall length and energy in an earlier study [8]. An ideal linear relationship would be:

a(t ) = x (t ) + H (x (t ))

The spectrum of the envelope is then the measure of bearing defect at the appropriate passing frequency. A. Implementation of the Envelope Algorithm ! Window frequencies are obtained by band pass filtering. A band pass filter can be thought of the convolution of a low pass filter with a high pass filter. The length of the band pass filter, for a given low/high pass cut off is 2*n-1, or twice the length of the low pass filter by itself. This is important in filtering, which in general is a n2 operation (even FFT filtering has an order of operation of n * log2(n)). Alternatively, consider the trigonometric identity:

BE = B0 + B1 * TSL

(6)

cos(a) " cos(b) = 1 2 [cos(a # b) + cos(a + b)] (5)

By multiplying x(t) by an analytic signal with a frequency f, which is the center of the BEA window and then low pass filter with a bandwidth equal to the bandwidth of the BEA, we can forego band pass filtering in lieu of the low pass filter. The Hilbert transformed signal is then:

where BE is the BPFI energy, B0, is an offset value, B1 is a scale value, and TSL is the total spall length of the damage. A measure of this models fit is the correlation coefficient (r).

!
A correlation coefficient (r) of positive 1 would indicate a linear relationship between TSL and measured BPFI energy. For prognostics, this is advantageous as one could easily measure the rate of change of BPFI vs. time (or load) and

develop, given an appropriate fault model, an estimate of the remaining useful life. No correlation would be reflected by a correlation coefficient of 0 and an inverse correlation would be reflected by a negative coefficient. As the correlation coefficient is reduced from a positive 1 the prognostic model of remaining useful life becomes less reliable. For each potential window, one can generate the correlation coefficient observed over the five acquisitions/inspections (see figure 2). In figure 2, the measured energies (BE) have been normalized such the maximum value is 1. In general, BPFI values of 10-5 g/Hz were measured for the baseline bearing and 10-3 g/Hz values were measured for the damaged bearings (energy vs. power). As an example, consider a window from 4 to 45 KHz. (figure 2). The correlation coefficient is r = -0.36. After the second acquisition, the BE actually decreased with time. This would result in a poor prognostic. Conversely, the 20.5 to 45 KHz window resulted in a correlation coefficient of r = 0.99, almost a perfect linear relationship between damage and BE. In an operational system, the assurance of a linear relationship between damage and measured condition indicator will give a good prognostic. For the Sikorsky Aircraft Corporations average spectral energy algorithm (ASE) the measure of effectiveness (MOE) was the correlation coefficient of the average energy vs. TSL. Similarly, the average envelope energy vs. TSL was evaluated.

The kurtogram of a nominal bearing was generated for both spectral and envelope kurtosis. The filtering was limited between 4 KHz and 45 KHz (Nyquest was 50 KHz). The lower limit was chosen because it is our experience that below 4 KHz, there is significant gear mesh tones which would be measured in the SK. We partitioned the frequency space into five octaves, such that each frequency band was halved with each increase in octave:
TABLE I. KURTOGRAM FREQUENCY MAP

Octave 1 2 3 4 5 6

Bandwidth 41 KHz 20.5 KHz 10.25 KHz 5.125 KHz 2.5625 KHz 1.2812 KHz

Number of Bands 1 2 4 8 16 32

PSD Window 37768 16384 8192 4096 2048 1024

One additional analysis issue is the selection of power spectral density (PSD) window and overlap length. As the bandwidth degreased, the PSD window length was decreased proportionally. This was done in order to have a frequency bin resolution that was constant: approximately 1 Hz. This also resulted in 12 averages for the PSD for each octave/filter. See figure 3 for SK kurtogram and figure 4 for the envelope kurtosis (EK) kurtogram. Each bearing resulted in 64experiments.

SK2 Figure 2 Example of correlation as a function of BEA Window IV. THE KURTOGRAM Figure 3 Spectral Kurtosis kurtogram of the Nominal Bearing Figure 3 indicated that the lower frequency windows of 4 to 45 KHz (SK1) and 24.5 to 45 KHz (SK2) have the highest kurtosis, and would be the best windows for BEA. The EK kurtogram interestingly showed a different behavior (figure 4). Kurtosis is a non-dimensional quantity that measures the relative peakedness of a distribution relative to the Gaussian distribution. Spectral kurtosis (SK) is a statistical parameter indicating how the impulsiveness of a signal varies with frequency. As noted, faults associated with rolling element bearings give rise to modulated impulses. The SK will be large in frequency windows where the fault signal is dominant and small where the spectrum is dominated by stationary signals. Antoni [9] developed the kurtogram, which is a map indicating the optimum center frequency and bandwidth combination. SK1

envelope energy (table II), and the average envelope energy and ASE (table III). EK3
TABLE II. SK AND EK R ESPONSE FOR 5 FREQ. BANDS: I NNER RACE ENVELOP ENERY

EK1

EK2

Figure 4 Envelope Kurtosis kurtogram of the Nominal Bearing It is interesting that the best spectral bands SK are so different than that for EK. The two best bands for SK are the base band (e.g. 4 to 45 KHz, centered on 24.5 KHz, and the second octave (24.5 to 45 KHz, centered on 34.75 KHz). The best bands for the EK where: 14.25 to 24.5 KHz (EK1), 24.5 to 34.75 KHz (EK2), and 30.9 to 33.46 KHz (EK3). This was then compared to the measured correlation coefficient of inner race envelope energy to TSL. Figure 5 is an example of the correlation coefficient for Bearing 1. Pictorially it can be seen that the SK kurtogram did not match the correlation coefficient as well as the EK kurtogram. For example, the 4-45 Khz (SK1) window showed disappointing results and would indicate the SK method did not produce a subset of reliable windows to utilize. Based on this its clear the SK is measuring a different feature than EK in the baseline bearing.

Band Kurtosis Brng1 Brng2 Brng3 Brng4 Brng5 Brng6 Brng7 Brng8 Brng9 Mean Median

4-45 SK1 0.08 0.29 -0.36 0.61 -0.20 -0.55 -0.56 -0.37 0.91 -0.02 -0.20

24.5-45 SK2 0.93 0.87 0.99 0.85 0.97 0.75 0.69 0.12 0.82 0.78 0.85

14.2-24 EK1 0.96 0.58 0.91 0.81 0.78 0.42 -0.83 0.48 0.28 0.49 0.58

24-35 EK2 0.97 0.00 0.94 0.87 0.93 0.48 -0.92 -0.32 0.75 0.41 0.75

31-33 EK3 0.92 0.28 0.75 0.77 0.32 0.51 0.87 0.38 0.72 0.61 0.72

Table II suggests that the BE measurement based on inner race envelope energy is a stochastic process. But where there is some between bearing measurement, there are definite trends. For example, the 24.5-45 KHz (EK2) window resulted in a mean correlation coefficient of 0.78. The high frequency window (31-33 KHz) showed similar performance to the 24.5 to 45 KHz window, which is consistent with a bearing resonance in the range of 31 to 33 KHz.
TABLE III. SK AND EK R ESPONSE FOR 5 FREQ. BANDS: AVERAGE ENVELOPE ENERGY AND AVERAGE SPECRAL ENERGY (SAC A LGORITHM)

EK3

EK1

EK2 SK2

Band Kurtosis Brng1 Brng2 Brng3 Brng4 Brng5 Brng6 Brng7 Brng8 Brng9 Mean Median

4-45
SK1

24-45
SK2

14 -24
EK1

24-35
EK2

31-33
EK3

0.97 0.99 0.89 0.77 0.94 -0.46 -0.04 0.85 0.86 0.64 0.86 V.

0.97 0.99 0.98 0.87 0.97 0.97 0.95 0.97 0.84 0.95 0.97

0.97 0.81 0.93 0.83 0.85 0.31 0.58 0.92 0.90 0.79 0.85

0.99 0.95 0.98 0.92 0.95 0.85 0.97 0.93 0.97 0.95 0.95

0.93 0.86 0.93 0.86 0.91 0.74 0.99 0.88 0.93 0.89 0.91

Avg Eng 0.96 0.87 0.95 0.84 0.86 0.18 0.75 0.51 0.71 0.73 0.84

DISCUSION OF RESULTS

SK1

Figure 5 Correlation of Inner Race Envelope Energy to Total Spall Length For each bearing, the correlation coefficient for each bearing was evaluated at each of these five windows, calculating the mean and median response for the inner race

The results highlight the variability between bearings. For example, bearing 7 has both negative and positive correlation coefficients, depending on the frequency band. As noted, the SK gave different results than the EK, suggesting that the analysis techniques are measuring different features. For example, the difference in SK value for the best and second to best band is less than 1%. However, the MOE results for SK changed from mean r of -0.2 to r = 0.78. The differences between the MOE results of the EK appear more consistent and appear to be a better tool for guiding the choice of the windows.

The SK and EK gave similar results for the average envelope energy. The ASE algorithm performed exceedingly well with the exception of the 4-45 Khz (SK1) window. The variability seen with the BE based on inner race envelope energy were significantly reduced. It is tempting to use the average energy algorithms exclusively. However, for complex gearboxes, gear mesh or gear clash can excite the higher frequencies spectral, which could potentially cause elevated average envelope or ASE energies. Unless the energy window can be modified accordingly this would cause a false alarm. Another item to consider is if isolation of which bearing is degraded is required the ASE algorithm does not provide sufficient information to accomplish isolation for complex gearboxes with multiple bearings. A hybrid of the two techniques should be evaluated. For example a technique that utilized ASE algorithm and BPFI for modeling remaining useful life could be developed to highlight strengths of two techniques and compensate for each of the algorithms individual inherent weaknesses. The results suggest that EK gives more consistent performance than SK. Some considerations for this suggestion are: The EK frequency bands were smaller, allowing the use of a shorter FFT length for analysis. For an embedded application, this is a significant advantage. While the mean correlation coefficient was higher for the SK, the variance in the results for EK was lower, representing a reduction in the probability of missed detection. The first window (SK1) recommended by SK technique missed the better windows that existed in the higher octave bands of kutogram.

window. Additional analysis to consider is the magnitude of separation from healthy to faulted data, as well as, magnitude of separation of selected window is from the noise floor of the sensor. Both of these will drive the probability of detection and probability of false alarms. However, it is common to not have sufficient seeded fault data to analytically evaluate bearing windows for all dynamic components. Seeded fault data can be both costly and time consuming to capture. With the lack of relevant seeded fault data the picking of the appropriate window for bearing analysis becomes a challenge. While not a perfect methodology, the use of Envelope Kurtosis to select windows is a tool that should be considered when seeded fault data is not available to help guide the selection of windows for bearing analysis.

REFERENCES
[1] [2] [3] Maintenace and Management wind power. (references) Randall, R., B., Frequency Analysis Bruel & Kjaer, 1977. Carter, D., Rolling Elemetn Bearing Condition Testing Method and Apparatus, U.S. Patent 5,477,730, Dec 24, 1995. [4] McCain,B.,TearDownAnalysis(TDA)for the UH-60 Axial Fan, CSTE-DTC-RT- E-CS, 4 Aug 2008. [5] Bechhoefer E., Menon, P., Bearing Envelope Analysis Window Selection. Annual Conference of the Prognositics and Health Management Society, 2009. [6] Boskoski, P., Urevc, A., Bearing fault detection with application to the PHM Data challenge, Annual Conference of the Prognositics and Health Management Society, 2009. [7] Dwyer, R. Detection of non-gaussian signals by frequency domain kurtosis estimation. Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing, IEEE International Conference on ICASSP, 8:607610, 1983. [8] Bechhoefer, E., He, D., Bearing Damage Condition Indicator Correlation, Center for Rotorcraft Innovation Project: 07-B- 6-59-S2.1 [9] Antoni. J., Randall, R., The Spectral Kurtosis: Application to the Surveillance and Diagnostics of Rotating Machines, Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing submitted for publication, 2004. [10] Sawalhi, N., Randall, R., The Application of Spectral Kurtosis to Bearing Diagmostics Proceeding of Acoutics 2004, 3-5 November 2004, Could Coast, Austrlia.

A. Artificiality of the Testing or Biasing of Results In general, real application of condition monitoring will not have intermediate inspection and teardowns of the gearbox. It is understood that no matter how careful the bearing inspection were, there will be difference in alignment/buildup of the bearing after each inspection. These cannot but effect subsequent acquisition values (although, significant time was allowed between each acquisition to mitigate these effects). Additionally, the general level of damage is high. Depending on the definition of failed (we take this to be a spall the length of the roller element), the bearings were in a failed state after the 3rd inspection. It would be preferable to do similar testing on bearings with less damage, as the results may be less linear. The condition monitoring for these bearing was almost ideal. The accelerometer was mounted directly on the bearing cap, and there was no other rotating equipment other the shaft driving the bearing. In a complex gearbox, the interaction of multiple gears, shafts, bearing etc, could generate different results. B. Application of Envelop Kurtosis In general the best technique for selecting bearing windows for analysis is through utilization of seeded fault data. As demonstrated in this paper one needs to evaluate the correlation coefficient of the degraded condition to the selected bearing

Eric Bechhoefer is the lead system engineer at NRG Systems. A former naval aviator, Dr. Bechhoefer recently joined NRG from the aerospace industry. Dr. Bechhoefer has 16 patents and over 50 papers related to condition monitoring of rotating equipment. Michael Kingsley has 14 years of experience with UTC developing diagnostic and prognostic systems. His background includes 10 years at Pratt & Whitney where he was most recently the Vibrations IPT Lead for the Joint Strike Fighter program. Previous to becoming the Vibrations IPT Lead, Michaels career spanned roles of leadership in the test, operability, and software groups. He is currently the Mechanical Diagnostics and Health Management Lead for Sikorsky. Mike has achieved both a Bachelor of Science degree and a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering. His undergraduate work was performed at the University of Michigan. He received his graduate degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Praneet Menon works at Goodrich, SIS as an Engineering Team Manager and Mechanical Diagnostics Lead. His team focuses on Mechanical Diagnostics R&D efforts as well as develops analytical tools. Currently his research focuses on seeded fault testing for various gear and bearing faults and will progress towards gear CI-computation verification and

generation of new CIs using advanced signal processing techniques. He has his BS in Aeronautical & Mechanical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and is currently pursuing his Masters in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Vermont.