Typical bearing-fault rating using force measurements: application to real data

In contrast to the commonly used acceleration measurement, this research discusses the use of force measurements to identify bearing faults. A force sensor is fixed between the rigid surroundings and the bearing to measure all of the reactive forces due to the vibration excitation. Using a force measurement, systematically prepared samples with the five typical faults that can occur during the assembly process (axial, radial, bending moment, contamination and shield defect) were investigated. The samples were prepared with low, medium and high fault ratings. The force measurement, with its relatively simple signal processing based on an envelope detection, was shown to be successful in correctly identifying both the fault rating and the fault type. The presented approach was successfully applied to high-series assembly production and is relatively easy to apply to similar applications.