Application of multi-scale chirplet path pursuit and fractional Fourier transform for gear fault detection in speed up and speed-down processes

Demodulation is very important for gear fault detection. However, the demodulation is substantially complicated by the non-stationary nature of the signal during the speed-up and speed-down processes. As such, we propose a new technique to detect gear faults under such conditions based on the multi-scale chirplet path pursuit (MSCPP) algorithm and the fractional Fourier transform (FrFT) method. With the MSCPP algorithm, the instantaneous frequency of the signal component with the largest energy in the multi-components gear vibration signal can be estimated. Then according to the estimated instantaneous frequency, the vibration signal segment whose instantaneous frequency curve approximated as either an ascending or descending linear segment can be obtained from the original gear vibration signal. In other words, the vibration signal segment that can be regarded as a multi-component linear frequency modulated (LFM) signal is extracted. As the FrFT is suitable for multi-component LFM signal analysis, it is then applied to demodulating this vibration signal segment and hence detecting local gear faults based on the revealed modulation phenomenon. The effectiveness of the proposed method has been demonstrated by both simulation and experimental data.