Defect detection for bearings using envelope spectra of wavelet transform

In order to overcome the shortcomings in the traditional envelope analysis in which manually specifying a resonant frequency band is required, a new approach based on the fusion of the wavelet transform and envelope spectrum is proposed for detecting and localizing defects in rolling element bearings. This approach is capable of completely extracting the characteristic frequencies related to the defect from the resonant frequency band. Based on the Shannon entropy of wavelet-based envelope spectra, a criterion to select optimal scale to monitor the condition of bearings is also presented. Experiment results show that the proposed approach is sensitive and reliable in detecting defects on the outer race, inner race, and rollers of bearings.