On the Accuracy of Fault Diagnosis for Rolling Element Bearings Using Improved DFA and Multi-Sensor Data Fusion Method

Rolling element bearings are widely employed in almost every rotating machine. The health status of bearings plays an important role in the reliability of rotating machines. This paper deals with the principle and application of an effective multi-sensor data fusion fault diagnosis approach for rolling element bearings. In particular, two single-axis accelerometers are employed to improve classification accuracy. By applying the improved detrended fluctuation analysis (IDFA), the corresponding fluctuations detrended by the local fit of vibration signals are evaluated. Then the polynomial fitting coefficients of the fluctuation function are selected as the fault features. A multi-sensor data fusion classification method based on linear discriminant analysis (LDA) is presented in the feature classification process. The faults that occurred in the inner race, cage, and outer race are considered in the paper. The experimental results show that the classification accuracy of the proposed diagnosis method can reach 100%.