A novel time-frequency analysis method for fault diagnosis based on generalized S-transform and synchroextracting transform

Abstract Rotating machinery usually operates under variable-speed conditions, and how to effectively handle nonstationary signal in fault diagnosis is a critical task. The time-frequency analysis (TFA) method is widely used in the processing of nonstationary signal. To improve the time-frequency resolution and clearly identify instantaneous frequency (IF) characteristics, the adaptive generalized S-synchroextracting transform (AGSSET), which is a novel TFA method proposed in this paper. Firstly, a new transform named adaptive generalized S-transform (AGST) is put forward by optimizing the window function of generalized S transform. In this paper, an adaptive window function optimization method based on the frequency spectrum of the vibration signal is introduced, and the energy concentration measure is used to determine the window function’s parameters in AGST. Simultaneously, the synchrony extraction idea is incorporated into the AGST, then the AGSSET is derived. To address more complex IF characteristics, the synchronous extraction operator (SEO) is reconstructed. In the simulation experiment, the GMLC signal model is selected to represent nonstationary signal and to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. In addition, bearing fault data is also used for fault diagnosis experiments. The results of both numerical simulation and experimental analysis indicate that AGSSET performs well in identifying the time-varying IF characteristic in nonstationary signals. It can also efficiently detect faults with high accuracy and strong stability.