A periodic-modulation-oriented noise resistant correlation method for industrial fault diagnostics of rotating machinery under the circumstances of limited system signal availability

The periodical impulses caused by localized defects of components are the vital characteristic information for fault detection and diagnosis of rotating machines. In recent years, multitudinous spectrum analysis-based signal processing methods have been developed and authenticated as the powerful tools for excavating fault-related repetitive transients from the measured complex signals. Nonetheless, in practice, their applications can be severely confined by the constraints of limited system signal availability and incomplete information extraction under intricate noise interferences. To tackle the aforementioned issues, this paper proposes a periodic-modulation-oriented noise resistant correlation (PMONRC) method for target period detection and fault diagnosis of rotating machinery. Firstly, the envelope of raw signal is obtained via a novel sequential procedure of signal element-wise squaring, spectral Gini index-guided adaptive low-pass filtering, and signal element-wise square root computation, to highlight the modulated wave component that is more likely to be related to the potential fault-induced periods. Subsequently, a series of sub-signals, which can encode the fault-related repetitive information and enhance noise resistance, are constructed utilizing the envelope signal. Based upon the envelope signal and the obtained sub-signals, a weighted envelope noise resistant correlation function can be derived with the assistance of the L-moment ratio-based indicator and Sigmoid transformation. Finally, the specific fault type of the rotating machinery can be identified and affirmed accordingly. The proposed PMONRC method, which is nonparametric and completely adaptive to the signal being processed itself, overcomes the deficiencies of spectral analysis-based approaches, and is applicable for the engineering circumstances of system signal limitation and low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), possessing immense practical merit. Both simulation analyses and experimental validations profoundly demonstrate that the proposed method is superior to other existing state-of-the-art time-domain correlation methods. Moreover, as an attempt as well as exemplar to apply this method, the PMONRC-based incipient fault diagnostic results of rolling bearing data from the well-known experimental platform PRONOSTIA are presented and discussed as well, to further elucidate the effectiveness and practical engineering significance of the proposed method.