Application of Vibration Analysis in Ball Bearing Fault Detection

In this paper, existence of localized defects in a ball bearing has been diagnosed using vibration analysis. First, different kinds of faults which occur in ball bearings have been investigated. Then an analytical model has been proposed for determining the damaged ball bearing vibrations due to a localized defect. Also various methods of fault detection have been evaluated. Next, in order to examine the ball bearings, a testing set-up has been designed and constructed. Then by preparing a computer program, which calculates defect frequencies, some ball bearings have been tested. The test results were originally derived in time-domain. Then by using vibration analysis of healthy and damaged ball bearings in frequency-domain, a fault detection method for ball bearings has been proposed.