Fault Detection Through Vibration Signal Analysis of Rolling Element Bearing in Time Domain

Mechanical failure prevention and condition monitoring have been one of the concerns of mechanical engineers in recent years due to the personal safety, cost of failure, reliability and downtime issues of equipment. Rotating machines are one of the most important actuators in the industrial applications as well as in every day applications. Rolling element bearings are very critical components of rotating machines and the presence of defects in the bearing may lead to failure of machines. Hence, early identification of such defects along with the severity of damage under operating condition of the bearing may avoid malfunctioning and breakdown of machines. Defective bearings are source of vibration and these vibration signals can be used to assess the faulty bearings. This chapter presents the brief review of recent trends in research on bearing defects, sources of vibration and vibration measurement techniques in time domain, frequency domain and time-frequency domain. Detailed explanation of defect detection through scalar indicators in time domain.