Envelope extraction based dimension reduction for independent component analysis in fault diagnosis of rolling element bearing

A robust feature extraction scheme for the rolling element bearing (REB) fault diagnosis is proposed by combining the envelope extraction and the independent component analysis (ICA). In the present approach, the envelope extraction is not only utilized to obtain the impulsive component corresponding to the faults from the REB, but also to reduce the dimension of vibration sources included in the sensor-picked signals. Consequently, the difficulty for applying the ICA algorithm under the conditions that the sensor number is limited and the source number is unknown can be successfully eliminated. Then, the ICA algorithm is employed to separate the envelopes according to the independence of vibration sources. Finally, the vibration features related to the REB faults can be separated from disturbances and clearly exposed by the envelope spectrum. Simulations and experimental tests are conducted to validate the proposed method.