Fault Detection of Broken Rotor Bar Using an Improved form of Hilbert–Huang Transform

Signal processing is an integral part in signal-based fault diagnosis of rotary machinery. Signal processing converts the raw data into useful features to make the diagnostic operations. These features should be independent from the normal working conditions of the machine and the external noise. The extracted features should be sensitive only to faults in the machine. Therefore, applying more efficient processing techniques in order to achieve more useful features that bring faster and more accurate fault detection procedure has attracted the attention of researchers. This paper attempts to improve Hilbert–Huang transform (HHT) using wavelet packet transform (WPT) as a preprocessor instead of ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) to decompose the signal into narrow frequency bands and extract instantaneous frequency and compares the efficiency of the proposed method named “wavelet packet-based Hilbert transform (WPHT)” with the HHT in the extraction of broken rotor bar frequency components from vibration signals. These methods are tested on vibration signals of an electro-pump experimental setup. Moreover, this project applies wavelet packet de-noising to remove the noise of vibration signal before applying both methods mentioned and thereby achieves more useful features from vibration signals for the next stages of diagnosis procedure. The comparison of Hilbert transform amplitude spectrum and the values and numbers of detected instantaneous frequencies using HHT and WPHT techniques indicates the superiority of the WPHT technique to detect fault-related frequencies as an improved form of HHT.