Comparative Study of Gearbox Fault Diagnosis by Vibration Measurements

Vibration analysis has been demonstrated to be one of the best tools to detect faults in a gearbox by providing abundant information about the operating condition of a gearbox. However, a gearbox generates complex vibration signals, which makes it difficult to diagnose when a fault occurs. There are several fault diagnosis methods that can be utilized to analyze the underlying signals. The time-frequency method has been used and showed some promising results. On the other hand, it also has its drawback when it is applied to a complex mechanical system such as gearboxes. This paper thus attempts to examine the effectiveness of several diagnosis methods to detect faults in a gearbox from vibration measurements. The results show that the cepstrum method can provide a more accurate indication of a faulty gearbox compared to other diagnosis methods.