ROLLING BEARING DAMAGE DETECTION AT LOW SPEED USING VIBRATION AND SHOCK PULSE MEASUREMENTS

Abstract

This paper describes a study on damage detection of a rolling bearing at low speed. In this study, an NTN N204 cylindrical roller bearing with an artificial local damage was tested under various operating speed and load levels. During the testing, two methods of measurement are employed to detect the damage. The first method is vibration measurement while the second is shock pulse measurement. For vibration data, RMS (Root Mean Square) and CF (Crest Factor) values are utilized to evaluate the bearing condition. For shock pulse data, dBc (dB carpet), dBm (dB maximum), LR (Low Rate), HR (High Rate), HDm (High Definition maximum), HDc (High Definition carpet) are utilized to evaluate the bearing condition. The results show that the shock pulse measurement is capable of detecting local bearing damage at lower speed than vibration measurement. For shock pulse measurement, HDm/HDc method of analysis is capable of detecting bearing damage at lower speed than either dBm/dBc or LR/HR method. For vibration measurement, the CF value is a better parameter for detecting bearing damage at low speed than the RMS value.