A methodology for fault detection in rolling element bearings using singular spectrum analysis

This paper proposes a vibration-based methodology for fault detection in rolling element bearings, which is based on pure data analysis via singular spectrum method. The method suggests building a baseline space from feature vectors made of the signals measured in the healthy/baseline bearing condition. The feature vectors are made using the Euclidean norms of the first three principal components found for the signals measured. Then, the lagged version of any new signal corresponding to a new (possibly faulty) condition is projected onto this baseline feature space in order to assess its similarity to the baseline condition. The category of a new signal vector is determined based on the Mahalanobis distance (MD) of its feature vector to the baseline space. A validation of the methodology is suggested based on the results from an experimental test rig. The results obtained confirm the effective performance of the suggested methodology. It is made of simple steps and is easy to apply with a perspective to make it automatic and suitable for commercial applications.