[312] Novel diagnosis of a lack of bearing lubrication via motor current non-linearity analysis
L Gelman1, M H Farhat1, G Conaghan2, W Kluis2 and A Ball1
1University of Huddersfield, UK
2Babcock BV, Holland
Lack of lubrication of bearings is one of the main causes of bearing failure. The objective of this research is to diagnose the lack of lubrication in motor bearings based on motor current signature analysis (MCSA). A diagnostic feature is proposed, investigated and validated by experiments in this paper for diagnosing the lack of bearing lubrication. The proposed diagnostic feature is extracted from the motor current signals of a gearmotor operating with a fully lubricated back bearing and in the case where the back bearing is not lubricated, respectively. The comparison of the values of the feature corresponding to the two states of bearing lubrication has proven its effectiveness in diagnosing the lack of bearing lubrication.
