Current-Aided Time-Frequency Analysis of Vibration Signals for Gearbox Fault Diagnosis

Vibration monitoring is an effective method for mechanical fault diagnosis. Wind turbines usually operated under varying-speed condition. Time-frequency analysis (TFA) is a reliable technique to handle such kind of nonstationary signal. In this paper, a new scheme, called current-aided TFA, is proposed to diagnose the planetary gearbox. This new technique acquires necessary information required by TFA from a current signal. The current signal is firstly used to estimate the rotating speed of the shaft. These parameters are applied to the demodulation transform to obtain a rough time-frequency distribution (TFD). Finally, the synchrosqueezing method further enhances the concentration of the obtained TFD. The validation and application of the proposed method are presented by a simulated signal and a vibration signal captured from a test rig.