Identification of Fault Signals in Rotating Machinery Using Higher Order Time Frequency Analysis

Impulsive acoustic and vibration signals within rotating machinery are often induced by irregular impacting. Thus the detection of these impulses can be useful for fault diagnosis. Recently there is an increasing trend towards the use of higher order statistics for fault detection within mechanical systems based on the observation that impulsive signals tend to increase the kurtosis values. We show that the fourth order Wigner Moment Spectrum, called the Wigner Trispectrum, has superior detection performance to second order Wigner distribution for typical impulsive signals found in a condition monitoring application. These methods are also applied to data sets measured within a car engine and industrial gearbox.