Evaluation of the Use of the Angular Domain and Order Domain in a Bearing Fault Detection Framework using Deep Learning

Abstract

Bearing failures are very common in the industrial environment, requiring effective fault detection methods, which can be categorized into physics-based, knowledge-based and data-driven types. Data-driven methods are efficient in differentiating healthy conditions from faulty conditions by characterizing machine signals, involving stages of data acquisition, feature extraction, and condition determination. Traditionally, feature extraction and condition determination were manual, but advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning, especially deep learning, have automated this process. Although deep learning automatically learns the best features from the input data, the signal domain can influence the model's performance. Time and frequency domain representations are widely used in fault detection methodologies using vibration signals, while angular and order domains are more common in variable operating conditions, but direct use of these domains with deep learning is still rare in the literature. Considering this, this study evaluates a bearing fault detection methodology using vibration signals in different domains (time, frequency, angular, and order) under various rotational conditions. Three distinct approaches were tested to assess the effectiveness of these representations. The results indicated that the frequency domain representation had the best overall performance and the study concluded that the angular and order domains do not offer significant advantages compared to the frequency domain. Nonetheless, it is recommended to conduct a more in-depth analysis with more diverse datasets, especially those containing early-stage bearing fault signals.