Identification of spalling fault size of ball bearing based on modified energy value

Abstract The size of bearing outer ring spalling failures has a significant impact on the vibration and service life of rotating machinery. It is necessary to judge the size of the outer ring fault size. Most of the vibration analyses identify the bearing fault size only in terms of the shock interval. The decreasing impact of the shock on the vibration signal will be related to the identification accuracy of the shock interval. This study aims to identify some feasible vibration signal processing methods for the identification of outer ring spalling sizes of ball bearings based on a modified energy value. The method involves the influence of impact forces on the measured vibration characteristics. According to the simulation analysis, the mapping relationship between the vibration signals with different fault sizes and the modified energy value is obtained. Then, the size of the spalling failure size of the ball bearing outer ring is determined. Compared to existing methods, the proposed method is less affected by impact forces. Simulation and experiment results have verified the accuracy of this fault size identification.