Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]]

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ymssp

Weak fault signature extraction of rotating machinery using

flexible analytic wavelet transform
ChunLin Zhang a, Bing Li a,n, BinQiang Chen b, HongRui Cao a, YanYang Zi a,
ZhengJia He a
a
State key laboratory for Manufacturing and Systems Engineering, School of Mechanical Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an
710049, PR China
b
School of Physics and Mechanical & Electrical Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, PR China

a r t i c l e i n f o abstract

Article history: Extracting and revealing the weak periodic fault vibration impulses is reasonable for
Received 1 March 2014 damage detection of rotating machinery. However, the widely used dyadic WT suffers
Received in revised form fixed frequency partition manner and low oscillating bases which would weaken its
27 January 2015
performance in weak fault detection. A new method based on flexible analytic wavelet
Accepted 26 March 2015
transform (FAWT) is proposed in this article. Employing fractional and arbitrary scaling
and translation factors, FAWT possesses attractive properties such as flexible time–
Keywords: frequency (TF) covering manner, better shift-invariance and tunable oscillatory nature
Rotating machinery of the bases, offering proper wavelet frame and bases shape to match the weak fault
Weak fault detection
components. Moreover, FAWT is effective in revealing the amplitude modulation feature
Periodic impulses
of the periodic fault impulses that occur in some damaged rotating components. The
Amplitude modulation
Flexible analytic wavelet transform (FAWT) applications to a rolling bearing, a planetary gearbox of, and a flue gas turbine unit show
that the proposed method is effective in extracting weak impulsive fault signature.
& 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Fault diagnosis of rotating machinery, especially at the early stage, has gained wide attention for its significance in
preventing potential catastrophic accidents and beneficially guarantee sufficient maintenance time [1–3]. Vibration-based
analysis has been used extensively due to its intrinsic advantage of revealing the machinery fault signature [4–6].
From mechanical fault mechanism, periodic impulses occur in the vibration measurements when local defect appears in
the key rotating components such as rolling bearing, rotor, gearbox, etc. [7,8]. Also in some cases the periodic fault impulses
exhibit amplitude modulation feature due to the transfer path from damage meshing location to the fixed accelerometer
varying during one revolution. Thus, the accurate revelation of both impulses and their amplitude modulation feature is
strong evidence to enhance the certainty of fault diagnosis. However, these fault impulses usually are weak because they are
buried in strong vibration responses from other mechanical components and severe background noise [9,10], and the signal-
to-noise ratio (SNR) will be further weakened for the early-stage defect. Thus proper signal processing technique is a critical
prerequisite for clear identification of fault signature [11,12].

n
Corresponding author. Tel.: þ86 29 82663689 602; fax: þ86 29 82663689 605.
E-mail address: [email protected] (B. Li).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ymssp.2015.03.030
0888-3270/& 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article as: C. Zhang, et al., Weak fault signature extraction of rotating machinery using flexible analytic
wavelet transform, Mech. Syst. Signal Process. (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ymssp.2015.03.030i
2 C. Zhang et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]]

Wavelet filter-based denoising method is a promising way to detect fault signature of mechanical impulse-like defects
[13]. Wavelet transform (WT) enjoys fine TF concentration and multi-resolution analysis capacity and is a powerful
mathematical tool for processing non-stationary signals [14]. Harmonic wavelet (HW) can easily obtain arbitrary location
and bandwidth of the wavelet filters and is introduced for enhanced weak defect identification in rotating machinery
systems [15,16]. However, this continuous WT (CWT)-type operator suffers restricted computation efficiency.
Enjoying efficient implementation using dyadic dilation and translation parameters [17], various dyadic wavelet transforms
(WTs) have been investigated and widely used in mechanical vibration analysis and fault detection [18,19]. Wang and McFadden
used Db4 wavelet as the wavelet function to perform discrete wavelet transform (DWT) on gearbox vibration signal for
measuring its tooth-broken defect [20]. Djebala conducted a DWT-based adaptive filtering operation for fault diagnosis of rolling
bearing [21]. However, DWT suffers shift-invariance and poor resolution at its high frequency subbands, which weaken its
performance in detecting transient components with high-frequency characteristics. As an enhancement of DWT, wavelet packet
transform (WPT) improves the high-frequency resolution through a parallel decomposition of both the high- and low-frequency
bands [22,23]. Liu proposed an optimal WPT basis selection method from two sets of basis functions for fault diagnosis of
rotating machinery [24]. Dual-tree complex wavelet transform (DTCWT) employs complex bases and has been demonstrated to
enjoy enhanced shift-invariance due to its analytic frequency response [25,26]. Wang studied DTCWT-based signal denoising
method for multiple fault signature detection [27]. Chen et al. utilized DTCWT to reveal periodic fault signature of gearbox [28].
The second-generation wavelet transform (SGWT) provides users with much flexibility for building different bases for
engineering problems via a lifting scheme with prediction and update operation [29]. Despite fruitful achievements in vibration
analysis and fault diagnosis, the effectiveness of dyadic WTs is weakened due to some intrinsic drawbacks like low-oscillatory
basis and fixed wavelet frame [30].
To effectively detect the fault impulses, the shape and location of wavelet filters should be adjustable to adaptively match the
locally concentrated frequency spectrum of the periodic fault impulses. This can be further explained from the view of inner
product. WT detects the transient fault features through inner product of the input signal and predetermined bases in the TF plane
[31]; thus the location and shape matches of wavelet bases and fault impulses play a key role in the weak fault detection
performance. Accordingly, the success of feature extraction is determined by two factors: wavelet frame and basis oscillation.

(1) Wavelet frame for location match. Wavelet frame is a set of bases dilated and translated from the mother wavelet, and
determines the sampling of the TF plane. In a tight wavelet frame, dilation parameter cites the center locations of
wavelet bases along the frequency axis, while dilation and translation parameters cite those along the time axis.
Considering the weak fault impulses are located in some local position of the TF plane, it will be feasible to reveal the
weak signature by employing proper wavelet frame with appropriate dilation and translation factors.
(2) Basis oscillation for shape match. Viewing from the inner product, WT exhibits the largest value when the signal and the
wavelet basis are the most correlative. A high oscillatory basis could easily detect the high oscillatory impulses, which
commonly occur in damaged rotating machinery.

However, for dyadic WTs, the TF partition manner is rigid and octave due to the dyadic dilation and translation parameters.
Besides, the oscillation of dyadic wavelet bases is low and would weaken its performance in matching highly oscillatory fault
impulses.
In this article, a novel method based on the flexible analytic wavelet transform (FAWT) is proposed to address the
limitations of dyadic WTs and enhance the performance of weak fault features detection in rotating machinery. FAWT was
originally investigated by Bayram [32]. FAWT allows employing arbitrary sampling rates in both the lowpass and highpass
channels, which leads to a flexible TF partition manner where the dilation and translation factors can be easily set.
Additionally, via regulating the width of frequency transition bands, the FAWT can attain desirable oscillatory bases to detect
different oscillatory impulses. Accordingly, for damaged rotating component such as planet gear, the periodic fault impulses
and its amplitude modulation feature can be extracted via using proper FAWT basis.
Furthermore, the construction of the optimal wavelet basis should be data-driven in application because prior
knowledge of the impulse being extracted is hardly available. In this paper, the genetic algorithms (GAs) are adopted to
select the optimal control parameters based on characteristic kurtosis spectral entropy (CKE) maximization principle.
Kurtosis is a widely used indicator of impulses. However, kurtosis is more sensitive to single strong impulse than to weak
periodic impulses. Considering that the single or sporadic impulses sometimes occur in the subband signals, especially
when narrow bandwidth filter is adopted, an improved indicator termed ‘CKE’ is presented to reveal both the impulsive and
periodic behaviors of signals and suppress the sensitivity of kurtosis to sporadic impulsive shocks. The proposed method is
applied to both laboratory and engineering tests for defects detection of rolling bearing, planetary gearbox, and a flue gas
turbine unit. Compared with classical dyadic WTs, HWT, SK and denoising method, the proposed method is validated to be
effective to detect weak fault signature.
The rest of this article is organized as follows. The summary theories of dyadic WTs are briefly introduced in Section 2. In
Section 3, the theory and attractive properties of FAWT are explicated. Accordingly, the fault features detection approach is
proposed in Section 4 and experimental studies are performed in Section 5. Additionally, discussions are followed after each
application case. Finally, the conclusions are summarized in Section 6.

Please cite this article as: C. Zhang, et al., Weak fault signature extraction of rotating machinery using flexible analytic
wavelet transform, Mech. Syst. Signal Process. (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ymssp.2015.03.030i
 C. Zhang et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]] 3

2. Dyadic WT and its limitations

2.1. Dyadic WT

WT enjoys attractive multi-resolution analysis ability, which is realized through the inner product of the input signal and
the wavelet frame [33]. Wavelet frame is a family of bases functions covering the TF plane. Then one signal xðt Þ in the time
domain is feasible to be mapped onto the TF plane by using WT.
D E Z þ1  
1 t b
WTx ða; bÞ ¼ xðt Þ; ψ a;b ðt Þ ¼ pffiffiffi xðt Þψ n dt ð1Þ
a 1 a

Employing dyadic dilation and translation factors, dyadic WT can greatly improve the computation efficiency via Mallat's
pyramidal algorithm. Fig. 1 shows the implementation algorithm of dyadic WTs, including DWT and DTCWT. For DWT, each
branch at the decomposition phase states a set of real-valued bases owning the same scaling factor. Differently, DTCWT
utilizes complex wavelet bases. Furthermore, the real and imaginary parts of DTCWT bases form an approximate Hilbert
transform pair and offer enhance the performance of shift-invariance over DWT [27].
Dyadic WT is powerful in analyzing non-stationary signals [34], but it suffers some intrinsic limitations which weaken its
performance in detecting weak fault signature.

2.2. Limitations of dyadic WT

(1) Rigid wavelet frame. As Fig. 2 shows, dyadic WT owns a fixed TF sampling manner along both the frequency and time
axes due to its utilization of dyadic scaling and translation factors (corresponding to the up/down sampling factors of 2
in the pyramid algorithm) [35], resulting in two unfavorable influences in revealing the transient fault impulses. Firstly,
the dyadic WT will perform ineffectively in extracting periodic impulses whose spectrum lies in the transition bands of
two adjacent wavelet subbands; secondly, the grid translation parameters may further mismatch the periodic impulses
with arbitrary intervals.
(2) Low oscillatory TF atoms. Most dyadic WT bases exhibit wide and slowly decaying frequency transition bands, resulting
in the low oscillatory atoms in the time domain [36]. This characteristic makes dyadic WT less effective in extracting
highly oscillatory fault features that commonly occur in mechanical faults.

3. Flexible analytic wavelet transform (FAWT) and its properties

Similar to dyadic WT, FAWT is an easily invertible ‘Constant-Q’ transform. Fig. 3 shows a two-stage FAWT decomposition
and reconstruction algorithm. The iterated filter bank (FB) consists of one lowpass and two highpass channels. One of these
highpass channels analyzes ‘positive frequencies’, while the other analyzes ‘negative frequencies’ [32]. This type of
separation of the positive and negative frequency can easily obtain Hilbert transform pairs of the wavelet bases. At the
reconstruction phase, when the coefficients in all channels are set to 0 except one interested channel, then the wavelet
subband signal at the interested scale can be individually reconstructed.

Fig. 1. Pyramid algorithm of typical dyadic WT: (a) DWT and (b) DTCWT.

Please cite this article as: C. Zhang, et al., Weak fault signature extraction of rotating machinery using flexible analytic
wavelet transform, Mech. Syst. Signal Process. (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ymssp.2015.03.030i
4 C. Zhang et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]]

t
f

f t

f
t

Fig. 2. TF partition manner of dyadic WT frame.

Fig. 3. Two-stage FAWT decomposition and reconstruction algorithm.

3.1. Filter banks of FAWT

The filters adopted in FAWT are specified directly in the frequency domain. In Fig. 3, H ðwÞ is the frequency response of the
scaling function; meanwhile, GðwÞ and Gn ð  wÞ make up the frequency response of analytic wavelet function. They are all
band supported and defined mathematically as [32]
8 pffiffiffiffiffiffi
> pq; jwj o wp
>
> pffiffiffiffiffiffi    
< pqθ w  wp = ws wp ; wp r wr ws
H ðwÞ ¼ pffiffiffiffiffiffi     ð2Þ
>
> pqθ π  w þ wp = ws wp ; ws r w r  wp
>
:
0; jwj 4 ws

8 pffiffiffiffi  
>
> rsθ ðπ  wþ w0 Þ=w1  w0 ; w0 rw rw1
>
> p ffiffiffiffi
< rs; w1 ow ow2
GðwÞ ¼ pffiffiffiffi   ð3Þ
> rsθ ðw þw0 Þ=w1  w0 ;
> w2 rw rw3
>
>
: 0; w A ½  π ; w0  [ ½w3 ; π 

where
1β ε π
wp ¼ πþ ; ws ¼ ;
p p q
1β ε p π ε π ε
w0 ¼ π þ ; w1 ¼ π ; w2 ¼  ; w3 ¼ þ ;
r r qr r r r r
  pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
1 p  q þ βq 1
ε¼ π ; θðwÞ ¼ ð1 þ cos wÞ 2  cos w for w A ½0; π :
32 pþq 2

β and ε are the nonnegative constants and satisfy β o1. The frequency support of these filter banks is shown in Fig. 4. The
transition bands θðwÞ are constructed using Daubechies’ orthonormal
n wavelet
o filters with 2 vanishing moments. For the

easy understanding of the FB properties, an equivalent FB H ðwÞ; GðwÞ to H ðωÞ; GðωÞ in the decomposition phase of
FAWT is illustrated in Fig. 5(a) in which the filtering operation is conducted before the sampling operator. These equivalent
filters are defined in Eqs. (4) and (5), and their frequency responses are shown in Fig. 5(b).
 
1 w
H ðwÞ ¼ H ð4Þ
p p

1 w
GðwÞ ¼ G ð5Þ
r r

Please cite this article as: C. Zhang, et al., Weak fault signature extraction of rotating machinery using flexible analytic
wavelet transform, Mech. Syst. Signal Process. (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ymssp.2015.03.030i
 C. Zhang et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]] 5

G w
rs
pq H w

ws wp w p ws w w w w w

Fig. 4. Frequency response of FAWT filters H ðwÞ; GðwÞ .

Fig. 5. Equivalent filter banks and its frequency response: (a) Equivalent filter bank and (b) The frequency response.

From Fig. 5, ε determines the width of transition bands of GðωÞ and is chosen as ε Z 0. To avoid overlapping between the
flat-pass bands of H ðwÞ and GðwÞ, the parameters should satisfy the constraint as
   
1  β π þ ε r pπ =q ) 1  β π r pπ =q ) 1  p=q r β: ð6Þ

Besides, to avoid information loss during signal decomposition, the redundancy factor of WT should be no less  j than
1
1.
Assuming the samples of the input signal aren, the output samples of the jth stage decomposition channel are nrs U pq . The
redundancy factor of the transform is derived as
1  j  1
samples½output r X p r=s p r
R¼ ¼ ¼ Z1 ) 1 r : ð7Þ
samples½input sj ¼ 1 q 1  p=q q s

Additionally, the Q-factor of FAWT, defined as the ratio of the center frequency to the bandwidth, could be derived as [32]

2β
Q¼ : ð8Þ
β
 
It reveals that β determines the quality factor of FAWT. From Eqs. (3) and (6), the range of β is determined as β A 1 p=q; 1 .
Since high Q-factors, corresponding to small values of β , lead to fine-frequency resolution of FAWT, thus the constraint on β
is further chosen as

1  p=q r β rr=s; p; q; r; s A Z þ ; βAR ð9Þ

Please cite this article as: C. Zhang, et al., Weak fault signature extraction of rotating machinery using flexible analytic
wavelet transform, Mech. Syst. Signal Process. (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ymssp.2015.03.030i
6 C. Zhang et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]]

3.2. Analytic wavelet bases

Employing two highpass channels separating the positive and negative frequencies, FAWT can easily obtain Hilbert
transform pairs of the wavelet bases. Fig. 6(a) shows the j-stage, ith translation highpass decomposition channels of FAWT.
Considering that GðwÞ allows only positive frequencies, and Gn ð wÞ only allows negative frequencies, the input signal is
divided into positive and negative frequency branches. The dashed part in Fig. 6(a) is equivalent to an inner product of the
po ne
input signal and two TF atoms bji ðnÞ and bji ðnÞ, as illustrated in Fig. 6(b). Accordingly, using the equivalent TF atoms, the
analytic basis of FAWT is shown in Fig. 6(c) and could be expressed as
ψ ℜe po ne
ji ¼ bji ðnÞ þ bji ðnÞ ð10Þ
 
ψ ℑm po ne
ji ¼ i  bji ðnÞ þ bji ðnÞ ð11Þ

Fig. 7 shows the frequency support of the real and imaginary parts of the FAWT basis ψ ji , namely ψ ℜe
ji ðwÞ and ψ ji ðwÞ.
ℑm

Then Eq. (12) can be easily drawn from Eqs. (10) and (11) or directly from Fig. 7.
 π=2 ℜe
ψ ℑm
ji ðwÞ ¼ signðwÞe ψ ji ðwÞ ð12Þ

where signðwÞ is the Sign function which is 1 for positive frequencies and 1 for negative ones. It indicates that the
imaginary part of the FAWT basis is the Hilbert transform of the real part. Thus, FAWT hosts Hilbert transform pairs of bases
and enjoys analytic frequency response. Similar to DTCWT, this characteristic offers FAWT attractive properties of
approximate shift-invariance and reduced aliasing.

3.3. Properties of FAWT

For accurate revealing of the periodic fault impulses and their relative amplitude strength, the signal processing method
should own adjustable location and shape of wavelet filters to match the locally concentrated frequency spectrum of fault
impulses [37]. Employing fractional scaling and translation factors and analytic bases, FAWT enjoys attractive properties like
shift-invariance, flexible TF covering and tunable oscillatory bases, leading to arbitrary setting of the wavelet filters and
accurate extraction of the impulse intervals.

Fig. 6. Hilbert transform pair basis of FAWT: (a) the j-stage decomposition channel; (b) equivalent TF atoms to the dashed part and (c) corresponding
analytic basis.

ℑm
Fig. 7. Frequency support of FAWT basis ψ ji : (a) real part ψ ℜe
ji ðwÞ and (b) imaginary part ψ ji ðwÞ.

Please cite this article as: C. Zhang, et al., Weak fault signature extraction of rotating machinery using flexible analytic
wavelet transform, Mech. Syst. Signal Process. (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ymssp.2015.03.030i
 C. Zhang et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]] 7

(1) Shift-invariance. Shift-invariance is an important necessity in revealing the accurate intervals of periodic impulses. It is
concluded that wavelet transform with M-fold decimator is near shift-invariant if the frequency supports of the filters
are not more than 2π =M [38]. Designed directly in frequency domain, FAWT employs strictly band-limited filters H ðwÞ
and GðwÞ, which satisfy the condition for near shift-invariance. Here a simulation
case is conducted

to verify its shift-
invariance property. Consider a set of shifted unit pulse functions δðn  iÞ; i ¼ 1; 2; …; 8 . Fig. 8 shows the
reconstructed subband signals of the simulated signal processed using DWT and FAWT, respectively. It shows that all
subbands of FAWT hold the same orderly translation features as that of the input signal, while some subbands of DWT
are disorderly and exhibit obvious shift-variance.
(2) Flexible TF covering. Fig. 9 shows the TF covering of FAWT bases. Via employing fractional sampling factors in both the
high-pass and low-pass channels, the scaling and translation factors can be set arbitrarily, resulting in flexible and
adjustable wavelet frame which is significantly different from that of dyadic WT.
By using a scaling factor q=p close to 1, FAWT is dilated gradually from scale to scale and results in narrow frequency
subbands with high frequency concentration. Thus, the fault features whose spectrum embedded in the transition bands
of dyadic WT would be well enhanced using proper wavelet frame.
(3) Oscillation-tunable bases. FAWT enjoys oscillation-tunable bases which make it feasible to match with different
oscillatory fault impulses. Essentially, adjusting the bases oscillation is regulating the shape of wavelet filters in
frequency domain. Fig. 10 shows the waveforms and frequency responses of the FAWT bases with different control
parameters. It indicates that the translation factor s=r has significant influence on the oscillation of the bases. A higher
translation factor always results in a higher oscillatory basis. However, too high translation factors should be averted due
to the ‘ringing’ phenomenon. Fig. 10(a) shows that the ‘ringing’ becomes obvious when s=r Z 3, thus the following
constraint condition is added to the choice of translation factor in this article:

1 r s=r r3 s; r A Z þ ð13Þ

With selected scaling and translation factors, the oscillation of the FAWT bases could be further adjusted finely via
changing the parameter β. As Fig. 10 shows, the frequency width of the transition bands increases with the increase of β ,
resulting in a decrease of the oscillation of the FAWT basis in the time domain.
Thus, the weak fault features could be efficiently extracted using appreciate FAWT frame consisting of proper fractional
scaling and translation factors q=p and s=r, as well as the parameter β.

Fig. 8. Shift-invariance property test on a set of shifted unit pulse functions using: (a) DWT (Db 8 basis) and (b) FAWT (p ¼ 2, q¼ 3, r¼ 1, s ¼2, β ¼0.5).

Fig. 9. TF covering of the FAWT frame.

Please cite this article as: C. Zhang, et al., Weak fault signature extraction of rotating machinery using flexible analytic
wavelet transform, Mech. Syst. Signal Process. (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ymssp.2015.03.030i
8 C. Zhang et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]]

Fig. 10. FAWT bases and the frequency response with the control parameters: (a) and (b): ðp; q; r; sÞ ¼ ð4; 5; 2; 6Þ, β ¼ 0:8r=s; (c) and (d):
ðp; q; r; sÞ ¼ ð4; 5; 2; 5Þ, β ¼ 0:8r=s; (e) and (f): ðp; q; r; sÞ ¼ ð4; 5; 2; 3Þ, β ¼ 0:8r=s; (g) and (h): ðp; q; r; sÞ ¼ ð4; 5; 2; 3Þ, β ¼ r=s.

4. FAWT-based weak fault features detecting method

To reveal the potential impulsive fault feature effectively, the proposed method is a data-driven process which includes
adaptive selection of proper FAWT basis and the sensitive wavelet subband, as Fig. 11 shows.

4.1. Optimal selection of FAWT basis via genetic algorithms (GAs)

To obtain proper FAWT basis for the input signals, the GAs are adopted to optimize the FAWT factors p, q, r, s and β. GAs
are effective in global optimization based on the ‘survival of the fittest’ paradigm found in nature [39]. For a candidate

Please cite this article as: C. Zhang, et al., Weak fault signature extraction of rotating machinery using flexible analytic
wavelet transform, Mech. Syst. Signal Process. (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ymssp.2015.03.030i
 C. Zhang et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]] 9

Fig. 11. Procedures of the proposed method.

wavelet basis, the input signal is divided into multiple subband signals via FAWT. An indicator termed kurtosis spectral
entropy (KE) is adopted to test the impulsive and periodic behaviors of each subband signal, and the maximal KE value is
regarded as the Characteristic kurtosis spectral entropy (CKE) of the wavelet basis. Thus, maximizing the CKE value via
optimizing the FAWT parameters, the optimal FAWT basis could be obtained and enjoys the potential ability to reveal the
weak fault signature.

4.1.1. Characteristic kurtosis spectral entropy (CKE)

Kurtosis index is sensitive to transient impulses and is widely used in choosing optimal basis and sensitive wavelet
subband. For the input signal xðnÞ, its kurtosis is defined as
h i
E ðxðnÞ  uÞ4
Kurt½x ¼ ð14Þ
σ4
where u and σ are, respectively, the mean and standard deviation of xðnÞ, E½ U  is the operator that computes the expectation
of a series.
However, kurtosis is more sensitive to single strong impulse than to weak periodic impulses. The single or sporadic
impulse sometimes occurs in the subband signals when applying the FAWT method, especially in the cases where narrow
bandwidth filter is adopted. That could be avoided by either limiting the minimal bandwidth of the filter or adopting a new
indicator which is sensitive to periodic impulses instead of strong single impulse. In this manuscript, taking both the
impulsive and periodic features of the periodic fault impulses into account, the kurtosis spectral entropy (KE) which is
proposed based on kurtosis is presented to indicate the periodic impulses and suppress the sensitivity of kurtosis to sporadic
impulsive shocks [40].
Suppose SR ðωÞ is the envelope spectrum of the input signal xðnÞ and J is layers of FAWT decomposition. Then the
envelope spectrum is divided equally into J frequency intervals along the frequency axis. The percentage spectrum samples
located on the ith interval is termed as the probability distribution pi ðSR ðωÞÞ, and satisfies

X
J
pi ðSR ðωÞÞ ¼ 1: ð15Þ
i¼1

Please cite this article as: C. Zhang, et al., Weak fault signature extraction of rotating machinery using flexible analytic
wavelet transform, Mech. Syst. Signal Process. (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ymssp.2015.03.030i
10 C. Zhang et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]]

Accordingly, the entropy of the envelope spectrum is defined as

X
J
Es ¼  pi ðSR ðωÞÞln pi ðSR ðωÞÞ ð16Þ
i¼1

Thus, kurtosis in Eq. (14) indicates the impulsive behavior of the signal, and Es indicates its periodic behavior. Taking
kurtosis and Es into account simultaneously, the KEðxÞ is expressed as
KEðxÞ ¼ kurtðxÞ=Es ð17Þ
For periodic impulses, the prominent components of the envelope spectrum concentrate on the low frequency interval,
resulting in low Es value, while for sporadic impulses, the dispersive envelope spectrum leads to larger Es than that of
periodic impulses. Thus a high KEðxÞ indicates that the signal is more probable to be periodically impulsive.
Let the notation BP;Q ;R;S;β stands for the FAWT basis whose parameters p, q, r, s and β are P, Q, R, S and β, respectively. The
CKE value of an FAWT basis BP;Q ;R;S;β is defined as the maxima of the KE values computed from the multiple subband signals
generated by this FAWT basis as follows:
h i    

CKE BP;Q ;R;S;β ¼ max KE½D1 ðnÞ; KE½D2 ðnÞ; …; KE DJ ðnÞ ; KE AJ ðnÞ ð18Þ

4.1.2. Range of factors

The admissible FAWT factors space U A under the constraint condition of Eq. (9) contains countless groups of controlling
parameters of the FAWT bases. To enhance the efficiency of selecting the optimal FAWT basis, an optimized specific
parameter space Γ which is a subset of the space U A is needed. To gain finer frequency resolution than dyadic WT, the scale
factor should satisfy 1=2 o p=q o1. Additionally, the translation factor should meet the constraint condition of Eq. (13) to
construct proper oscillatory bases. In this article, the range and constraint condition of the factors are chosen as follows:
 

Γ ¼ p; q; r; s; β p; q; r; s A Z þ ; β ¼ k U rs A R; 1 r p r 20; 1 r q r 20; 1 r r r20; 1 r s r20; 0 ok r1

8
< 1  p=q r β r r=s
>
s:t: 1 r s=r r 3 ð19Þ
>
: 1=2 op=q o 1

Using Eq. (19), Fig. 12 indicates that these candidate dilation and translation factors densely cover the range of [0.5, 1] and
[1,3], respectively. Thus this initial bound could offer sufficient different FAWT bases to choose from. Additionally, the
computation efficiency could be enhanced using this bound due to its inclusion of limited numbers of bases.
The arithmetic crossover and nonuniform mutation operators are taken in GAs. The population scale is set to 20, the
number of iteration to 30, the probability of crossover to 0.7 and the probability of mutation to 0.05. It is noted that these
parameter values of the GAs are general choice and are feasible in the application cases but may not be the optimal ones for
the optimizing process. The proper FAWT basis with respect to the input signal could be selected with the GAs based on the
characteristic kurtosis spectral entropy (CKE) maximization principle.

4.2. Optimal selection of the sensitive wavelet subband

Using the constructed optimal FAWT basis, the input signal is decomposed into different scales. Then the sensitive
wavelet subband is selected to reveal the potential fault features. To sum up, the procedure of performing adaptive sensitive

1 3

0.9 2.5
0.8
p/q

s/r

2
0.7
1.5
0.6

0.5 1
0 5 10 15 20 0 5 10 15 20
p r
Fig. 12. Candidate dilation and translation factors under the constraint of Eq. (19).

Please cite this article as: C. Zhang, et al., Weak fault signature extraction of rotating machinery using flexible analytic
wavelet transform, Mech. Syst. Signal Process. (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ymssp.2015.03.030i
 C. Zhang et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]] 11

subband selection is as follows:

(1) Transform the vibration measurements into the wavelet domain via using the optimal FAWT basis. Subsequently,
reconstruct the wavelet subband signals.
(2) Calculate the KE values of the constructed wavelet subband signals.
(3) The sensitive wavelet subband is chosen as the one with the maximal KE value. The purified signal is likely to indicate
the fault features hidden in the original vibration measurements.

5. Application of the proposed method in rotating machinery fault diagnosis

In this section, the FAWT-based diagnosis method is applied to fault detection of a rolling bearing, a planetary gearbox
and a flue gas turbine unit. Simultaneously, some existing wavelet-filter methods such as DWT (Db 8 basis, which is widely
used in wavelet analysis [41]), DTCWT, SK and harmonic wavelet (HW) are also used to compare their performance.
Additionally, the second-generation wavelet transform (SGWT)-based denoising method using the neighboring coefficients
[42] is also tested in the comparison study to validate the efficiency of the proposed method.

5.1. Case 1: detection of outer-race fault in a rolling bearing

In this case, the experimental data were downloaded from Prognostics Center of Excellence (PCoE) contributed by
Intelligent Maintenance System (IMS), University of Cincinnati [43]. As shown in Fig. 13, the bearing test rig hosts four test
Rexnord ZA-2115 double row bearings on one shaft, which is driven by an AC motor. The bearing run-to-failure experiments
were conducted under constant motor rotating speed of 2000 r/min and radial load of 6000 lb. The geometric parameters
and fault characteristic frequencies of the tested bearing are listed in Table 1. Eight accelerometers were installed on the
bearing housings at both vertical and horizontal directions. The vibration signals were collected every 20 min and digitized
at a sampling frequency of 20 kHz. More detailed information about this experiment could be found in Ref. [13].
The test was carried out successively for seven days until an outer race defect was found in bearing 1. Fig. 14(a) shows the
root mean square (RMS) for the entire life-cycle vibration of bearing 1. It reveals that the RMS of vibration measurements
increased significantly at the serious damage status. It is more significant to detect the damage at the early stage.
Considering the damage develops gradually from the weak status to serious defect, here three different-stage statues
(statuses 1, 2 and 3) are analyzed. For each status, a short duration of 0.025 s vibration signals is analyzed to reveal the real-
time operating status.

Fig. 13. Schematic sketch of the bearing test rig.

Table 1
Geometric parameters and expected characteristic frequencies of the tested bearing.

Bearing type Rexnord ZA-2115

Rotating speed of shaft [r/min] 2000

Pitch diameter [mm] 71.501
Roller diameter [mm] 8.4074
Roller number 16
Contact angle [deg] 15.17
Characteristic frequency of outer race defect [Hz] 236.40
Characteristic frequency of inner race defect [Hz] 296.93
Characteristic frequency of roller defect [Hz] 279.83

Please cite this article as: C. Zhang, et al., Weak fault signature extraction of rotating machinery using flexible analytic
wavelet transform, Mech. Syst. Signal Process. (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ymssp.2015.03.030i
12 C. Zhang et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]]

0.8

0.6 Status 3

RMS
0.4 Status 1 Status 2

0.2

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Time [days]

2
Am plitude

-1

0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02 0.025

Time [s]

Fig. 14. (a) RMS for the entire life cycle of bearing 1 and (b) vibration in status 3.

0.2
Amplitude

0.1
0
-0.1
-0.2

0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02 0.025

Time [s]

0.04
Magnitude

0.03

0.02

0.01

0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 9000

Frequency [Hz]

Fig. 15. Signals of status 2: (a) vibration waveform and (b) frequency spectrum.

5.1.1. Status 3: serious defect

Fig. 14(b) presents the vibration signals of status 3 which were collected at the end of the bearing test. It exhibits strong
periodical impulses with the mean interval of 0.00433 s (230.95 Hz), which is in agreement with the reciprocal of the
characteristic frequency of outer race defect. Thus the vibration signals in status 3 reveal the outer race defect directly and
clearly.

5.1.2. Status 2: early stage defect

Fig. 15(a) displays the vibration measurements of status 2 collected near three days before status 3, and the frequency
spectrum is shown in Fig. 15(b). However, the periodical impulses or sideband frequencies could not be clearly observed due
to the low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).
To extract the early stage defect, the proposed method is applied to analyze the measured signals. Using the GAs, the
optimal FAWT parameters p, q, r, s, β are (5, 6, 2, 3 and 0.51). The adaptive FAWT basis is shown in Fig. 16(a). Fig. 16(b)
displays the KE values of each wavelet subband signal decomposed using the optimal FAWT basis. According to the KE
maximization principle, the D8 wavelet subband is chosen as the sensitive subband which is likely to reveal the hidden
transient fault impulses.
Reconstruction signal of the selected D8 subband is displayed in Fig. 16(c). Successive periodic impulses are clearly
observed in the sensitive subband signal and the mean interval period is 0.0043 s (230.95 Hz), closely corresponding to the
ball-pass frequency of the outer race (BPFO). Considering that the impulse intervals may suffer the random fluctuation due

Please cite this article as: C. Zhang, et al., Weak fault signature extraction of rotating machinery using flexible analytic
wavelet transform, Mech. Syst. Signal Process. (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ymssp.2015.03.030i
 C. Zhang et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]] 13

1 4
Re a l
Sensitive subband
Im a g
0.5 3

A m p litu d e

KE
0 2

-0.5 1

-1 0
0 50 100 150 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Time [samples] Wavelet subband

0.05
Amplitude

-0.05

0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02 0.025

Time [s]

6
230.5(1xBPFO)
4
Amplitude

2xBPFO

0
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000
Frequency [Hz]

Fig. 16. Results using FAWT: (a) optimal FAWT basis; (b) KE values of wavelet subbands; (c) reconstructed D8 subband signal and (d) envelope spectrum.

to the slipping of the rollers, envelope spectrum analysis of the sensitive subband signal is further conducted and the result
is shown in Fig. 16(d). The peak values locate at the BPFO and its harmonics; thus the early stage defect in the outer race was
effectively diagnosed [44].
The same signal is analyzed using DWT (Db 8 basis), DTCWT, SK and HW, respectively. Fig. 17 presents the decomposition
results via dyadic WTs. From Fig. 17(a) and (b), the D2 subband signals for both DWT and DTCWT are rich in impulse features
and chosen to be the characteristic components, as shown in Fig. 17(c) and (d). The periodic impulses of the early stage fault
are also successfully detected by DWT and DTCWT but the features are not as evident as those in Fig. 16. The Kurtogram and
the resulting signal [45,46] are illustrated in Fig. 18. Only several periodic impulses were clearly observed in the purified
signal. The HW-based method proposed in Ref. [15] provides a powerful and sensitive tool in searching the frequency center
related to the damage. Here HW is also used to analyze the signal. Fig. 19(a) shows the indicator of energy-to-entropy ratio
which exhibits the maximum at 4180 Hz, thus the frequency range [3000, 5360 Hz] is selected to filter the signal and the
result is shown in Fig. 19(b). The periodic fault impulses are clearly observed using the HW-based method. Additionally, the
SGWT-based denoising method using neighboring coefficients is also adopted in the analysis and the results are shown in
Fig. 20. The result shows it is also effective in detecting the early stage defects.

5.1.3. Status 1: weak defect

Fig. 21 shows the acceleration signal and its frequency spectrum of status 1 collected exact three hours before status 2.
Compared with status 3 and status 2, the weak fault features were totally masked by the noise and no sign of periodic
impulses could be directly observed in Fig. 21.
Using the proposed method, the new adaptive optimal FAWT parameters of p, q, r, s, β are selected as (8, 9, 2, 3, 0.45), and
then the corresponding optimal wavelet basis is constructed as shown in Fig. 22(a). The KE values of every wavelet subband
signals corresponding to the optimal FAWT basis are illustrated in Fig. 22(b). Thus, the D7 subband with the maximal KE
value is chosen as the sensitive subband. The reconstructed D7 subband signal is illustrated in Fig. 22(c), in which periodic
impulses are clearly exhibited and the calculated mean interval period is 0.00423 s (236.41 Hz). Fig. 22(d) illustrates the

Please cite this article as: C. Zhang, et al., Weak fault signature extraction of rotating machinery using flexible analytic
wavelet transform, Mech. Syst. Signal Process. (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ymssp.2015.03.030i
14 C. Zhang et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]]

0.05 0.05
A4 0 A4 0
-0.05 -0.05
0.1
0.05
D4 0 D4 0
-0.05
-0.1
0.05 0.05
D3 0 D3 0
-0.05 -0.05
0.2 0.1
D2 0 0
D2
-0.2 -0.1
0 .1
0 .1
D1 0 D1 0
-0 .1 -0 .0 5
0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02 0.025 0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02 0.025
Time [s] Time [s]

0.3

0.2
A mp litu d e

0.1

-0.1

-0.2

0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02 0.025

Time [s]

0.2

0.1
A m p litu d e

-0.1

0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02 0.025

Time [s]

Fig. 17. Wavelet subband signals using dyadic WTs: (a) DWT; (b) DTCWT; (c) D2 subband signal of DWT and (d) D2 subband signal of DTCWT.

envelope spectrum of the sensitive subband signal and the peak values are the BPFO and its harmonics, indicating that local
defect occurs in the outer race of the tested bearing.
Meanwhile, the same vibration signal of status 1 is analyzed using other methods. Fig. 23 shows the wavelet subband
signals using DWT (Db 8 basis) and DTCWT, and their zoomed-in view of D2 subband signals which seem rich in impulses.
The Kurtogram and its purified signal are illustrated in Fig. 24. However, compared with Fig. 22(c), it is difficult to extract
periodic impulses from Figs. 23 and 24 and to draw any conclusive results from these purified signals. Using HW, the
frequency center and bandwidth are chosen as 3940 Hz and [2760, 5120 Hz], respectively. From Fig. 25, all the fault impulses
are successfully detected using HW but the feather is not as evident as that in Fig. 22 due to some ‘confused impulses’. The
denoising result using the SGWT method is shown in Fig. 26. The impulses are partly detected while some of them are
eliminated with noise.
In this case, three sets of vibration signals at different damage stages are used to demonstrate the efficiency of the
proposed method. Though vibration signals of status 3 with serious defect exhibit evident periodic impulses, it is more
appealing to detect the damage at the early stage so that enough buffer time is available for maintenance. In status 2 of early

Please cite this article as: C. Zhang, et al., Weak fault signature extraction of rotating machinery using flexible analytic
wavelet transform, Mech. Syst. Signal Process. (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ymssp.2015.03.030i
 C. Zhang et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]] 15

0
1.5
3

level: log2(Nw)
3.6
1
4

4.6 0.5

5
0
0 5000 10000
frequency [Hz]

0.02

0.01
Amplitude

-0.01

-0.02
0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02 0.025
Time [s]

Fig. 18. Results using spectral kurtosis: (a) Kurtogram and (b) purified signal.
Energy-to-entropy ratio

0.3
f=4180Hz

0.2

0.1

0
0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000
Center frequency [Hz]

0.2

0.1
Amplitude

-0.1

-0.2
0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02
Time [s]

Fig. 19. Results using HW: (a) selection of the center frequency and (b) purified signal.

0.1
Amplitude

-0.1

0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02 0.025

Time [s]

Fig. 20. SGWT denoising result using the neighboring coefficients.

stage defect, FAWT method and DWT, DTCWT, HW as well as SGWT denoising method can detect the periodic impulse
features. In status 1, all the methods except FAWT and HW fail to detect the weak defect and the result using FAWT exhibits
the most evident fault features. Thus, the proposed method exhibits strong robustness and behaviors effectively in
extracting the weak local defect of rolling bearing.

Please cite this article as: C. Zhang, et al., Weak fault signature extraction of rotating machinery using flexible analytic
wavelet transform, Mech. Syst. Signal Process. (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ymssp.2015.03.030i
16 C. Zhang et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]]

0.2

Amplitude
0.1
0
-0.1
-0.2
-0.3
0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02
Time [s]

0.04
Magnitude

0.03

0.02

0.01

0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 9000

Frequency [Hz]

Fig. 21. Signals of status 1: (a) vibration waveform and (b) frequency spectrum.

1 4
Re a l
Im a g Sensitive band
0.5 3
Amplitude

KE

0 2

-0.5 1

-1 0
0 50 100 150 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Time [samples] Wavelet subband

0.05
Amplitude

-0.05

0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02

Time [s]

6
236.5(1xBPFO)
Amplitude

4
2xBPFO

0
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000
Frequency [Hz]
Fig. 22. Results using FAWT: (a) optimal FAWT basis; (b) KE values of wavelet subbands; (c) reconstructed D7 subband signal and (d) envelope spectrum.

Please cite this article as: C. Zhang, et al., Weak fault signature extraction of rotating machinery using flexible analytic
wavelet transform, Mech. Syst. Signal Process. (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ymssp.2015.03.030i
 C. Zhang et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]] 17

0.05 0.05
A4 0 A4 0
-0.05
-0.05
0.1
0.05
D4 0 D4 0
-0.05
-0.1
0.05 0.05
D3 0 D3 0
-0.05
-0.1
0.2
0.2
0.1
D2 0 D2 0
-0.2 -0.1

0 .1 0 .1

D1 0 0
D1
-0 .1
0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02 -0 .10 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02 0.025
Time [s] Time [s]

0.2
A m p litu d e

0.1

-0.1

-0.2
0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02 0.025
Time [s]

0.2

0.1
A m p litu d e

-0.1

-0.2
0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02 0.025
Time [s]

Fig. 23. Wavelet subband signals using dyadic WTs: (a) DWT; (b) DTCWT; (c) D2 subband signal of DWT and (d) D2 subband signal of DTCWT.

5.2. Case 2: detection of missing tooth fault in a planetary gearbox

In this section, the performance of the proposed method is tested in detecting the missing tooth fault of a planet gear.
Fig. 27 shows the two-stage planetary gearbox test rig. The experimental system contains a two-stage planetary gearbox and
a two-stage fixed-axis gearbox. The two-stage planetary gearbox is our concern in the current study. Table 2 lists the gear
parameters of the planetary gearbox.
A damaged planet gear with a missing tooth is included in the second stage planetary gear pairs. And the accelerometers
were mounted on its adjacent bearing housing to measure the vibration. The experiment was conducted under unloaded
working condition. The input speed of the first stage input shaft was controlled constantly as 1800 r/min. Then the
characteristic frequencies of each gear in the second stage planetary gearbox could be calculated, as listed in Table 3. The
detailed calculation formulas of the characteristic frequencies of planetary gearbox could be found in Ref. [47].

Please cite this article as: C. Zhang, et al., Weak fault signature extraction of rotating machinery using flexible analytic
wavelet transform, Mech. Syst. Signal Process. (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ymssp.2015.03.030i
18 C. Zhang et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]]

0 0.6
3 0.5

lev el: log2(Nw)

3.6 0.4

4 0.3

0.2
4.6
0.1
5
0
0 5000 10000
Frequency [Hz]

0.0 2
A m p litud e

0.0 1
0
-0.0 1

-0.0 2
0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02
Time [s]

Fig. 24. Results using spectral kurtosis: (a) Kurtogram and (b) purified signal.
Energy-to-entropy ratio

0.3
f=3940Hz

0.2

0.1

0
0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000
Center frequency [Hz]

0.2

0.1
Amplitude

-0.1

-0.2 confused impulses

0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02
Time [s]

Fig. 25. Results using HW: (a) selection of the center frequency and (b) purified signal.

0.1
Amplitude

-0.1

0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02

Time [s]

Fig. 26. SGWT denoising result using the neighboring coefficients.

The vibration signals were measured with the sampling frequency of 25.6 kHz and the acceleration measurements at the
horizontal direction were considered and analyzed in this article. Fig. 28 shows the vibration signal and its frequency
spectrum. However, few periodic impulses or interested frequency sidebands could be evidently observed from Fig. 28.
Using the proposed FAWT-based processing method, the selected control parameters of p, q, r, s, β optimized via the GAs
method are (8, 9, 3, 7, and 0.30), and thus the corresponding optimal basis is constructed as shown in Fig. 29(a). The KE

Please cite this article as: C. Zhang, et al., Weak fault signature extraction of rotating machinery using flexible analytic
wavelet transform, Mech. Syst. Signal Process. (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ymssp.2015.03.030i
 C. Zhang et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]] 19

Data acquisition Motor Planetary gearbox Accelerometers Fixed axis gearbox Brake

Planet gear Missing tooth

1st stage 2nd stage Ring gear Sun gear Planet gear

Fig. 27. Two-stage planetary gearbox test rig: (a) experimental system; (b) structure scheme of the planetary gearbox and (c) missing tooth fault in the
planet gear.

Table 2
Parameters of planetary gearbox.

Gear type Number of gear teeth

1st stage 2nd stage

Sun gear 20 28
Planet gear 40 (3 Planets) 36 (4 Planets)
Ring gear 100 100

Table 3
Motor speed and characteristic frequencies of the second stage planetary gearbox.

Motor speed [r/min] 1800

Rotating frequency of sun gear [Hz] 5
Rotating frequency of planet gear [Hz] 3.0382
Rotating frequency of carrier [Hz] 1.0937
Rotating frequency of ring gear [Hz] 0
Characteristic frequency of sun gear [Hz] 15.6248
Characteristic frequency of planet gear [Hz] 3.0382
Characteristic frequency of ring gear [Hz] 4.375
Meshing frequency [Hz] 109.375

values of the wavelet subband signals decomposed using the optimal basis are listed in Fig. 29(b). The D9 subband signal
which has the maximal KE value is chosen as the sensitive wavelet subband. As shown in Fig. 29(c), the sensitive subband
signal clearly exhibits the following characteristics:

(1) Periodic impulses. Compared with the original signal in Fig. 28(a), evident periodic impulses could be observed in Fig. 29
(c). The mean interval period of the impulses is 0.3289 s (3.040 Hz), whose inverse is very close to the characteristic
frequency of the planet gear. Thus the missing tooth fault was effectively extracted using the proposed method.
(2) Amplitude modulation (AM) feature. Taking the rotating frequency of planet carrier 1.0937 Hz into account, the missing
tooth will induce three impulses during one revolution of the planet gear with respect to the sun gear. In Fig. 29(c), the
jth impulse in the ith revolution of the planet gear is marked as I ij (i; j ¼ 1; 2; 3). The meshing locations of the damaged
tooth with the sun or ring gear are varying during one revolution, resulting in time-varying vibration transfer paths,
with respect to the fixed accelerometer. In Fig. 29(c), the peak values of the impulses exhibit regular AM characteristic.

Please cite this article as: C. Zhang, et al., Weak fault signature extraction of rotating machinery using flexible analytic
wavelet transform, Mech. Syst. Signal Process. (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ymssp.2015.03.030i
20 C. Zhang et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]]

Amplitude [m/s2 ]
5

-5

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5

Time [s]

0 .1 5
M a g n itu d e

0.1

0 .0 5

0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000

Frequency [Hz]

Fig. 28. Time and frequency domain response: (a) vibration signal and (b) Fourier spectrum.

20
1 Real Sensitive subband
Imag
0.5 15
A m p litu d e

KE

0 10

-0.5 5

-1 0
0 50 100 150 5 10 15
Time [samples] Wavelet subband

0.3289 0.3289 0.3289 0.3289 0.3289 0.3289 0.3289 0.3289

0.5 I11 I12 I13 I21 I22 I23 I31 I32 I33
Amplitude [m/s 2 ]

-0.5

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5

Time [s]
Fig. 29. Results using FAWT: (a) optimal FAWT basis; (b) KE values of wavelet subbands and (c) reconstructed D9 subband signal.

During each revolution, the peak value of the second impulse is much smaller than the others, indicating that the
meshing location of the second impulse is most far from the sensor position.

Also, the performances of other methods are tested using the same vibration measurements. Fig. 30 shows the
decomposition subband signals using DWT (Db 8 basis) and DTCWT. The Kurtogram and purified signal using SK are
illustrated in Fig. 31(a) and (b), respectively. Fig. 32 shows the SGWT denoising result. It indicates that DWT, SK and SGWT
denoising methods only successfully extracted the strong impulses in the vibration signals, while they failed to detect the
weak impulses in each resolution of the planet gear. The fault impulses seem to be presented in the result of DTCWT but the
AM feature at the first revolution is not as evident as those in Fig. 29(c).

Please cite this article as: C. Zhang, et al., Weak fault signature extraction of rotating machinery using flexible analytic
wavelet transform, Mech. Syst. Signal Process. (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ymssp.2015.03.030i
 C. Zhang et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]] 21

Amplitude
0

-5
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
Time [s]

4
Amplitude [m/s 2]

-2

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5

Time [s]

Fig. 30. Wavelet subband signals using dyadic WTs: (a) DWT and (b) DTCWT.

0 500
3
level: log2(Nw)

400
3.6
4 300
4.6
200
5
5.6 100
6
0
0 5000 10000
Frequency [Hz]

0.5
A m p litu d e

-0.5

0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5

Time [s]

Fig. 31. Results using spectral kurtosis: (a) Kurtogram and (b) purified signal.

In this case, the missing tooth fault is a serious damage. However, because the sensor position is cited on the bearing
housing instead of the casing of the ring gear, as well as the unloaded working condition, the periodic fault impulses are
weakened and covered by various vibration signals of other uncorrelated components. The FAWT enjoys flexible frequency
concentration and could reveal the weak periodic fault impulses effectively.

5.3. Case 3: detection of rub-impact fault in a flue gas turbine unit

Rub-impact is a serious fault in rotor systems. Much attention has been paid to the rub-impact mechanism and some
interesting conclusions have been drawn. It is found that the sub-harmonic components such as 12X, 13X etc. (where 1X is the
fundamental rotating frequency) are symptoms of rub-impact fault, especially at the early stage [48,49]. However, due to its
nonstationarity, the fault features of rub-impact are difficult to be extracted. In this case, the proposed method is used to
analyze the characteristic of this fault in a flue gas turbine unit.
Fig. 33 shows the structure sketch of a heavy oil catalytic cracking set in an oil refinery. It mainly contains a flue gas turbine,
compressor, gearbox and an electric motor. The specified speed of the flue gas turbine is kept constantly as 5745 r/min. Eddy

Please cite this article as: C. Zhang, et al., Weak fault signature extraction of rotating machinery using flexible analytic
wavelet transform, Mech. Syst. Signal Process. (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ymssp.2015.03.030i
22 C. Zhang et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]]

Amplitude [m/s2 ]
0

-5

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5

Time [s]

Fig. 32. SGWT denoising result using the neighboring coefficients.

Rubbing position #1-#4: Eddy current sensors

#1 #2 #3 #4 Motor

A B

Flue gas turbine Compressor Gearbox A, B: Couplings

Fig. 33. Structure sketch of the machine set.

10
Amplitude [μm]

-10

0 0.05 0.1 0.15

Time [s]

8
95.81(1X)
6
Magnitude

3X 4X 5X
4

0
0 200 400 600 800 1000
Frequency [Hz]

Fig. 34. Time and frequency domain response: (a) vibration signal and (b) Fourier spectrum.

current sensors were mounted on 1–4 bearing bushes to monitor the displacement signals of the machine set. The sampling
frequency is 2000 Hz. Once in the restarted running of the machine set just after being overhauled, the displacement
measurements collected from 2 sensor exceeded the upper limit. Fig. 34 displays the vibration signal and its frequency spectrum
from sensor 2.
Aiming at analyzing the potential fault features, the proposed method is applied. Using the aforementioned processing
procedures, the optimal control parameters of p, q, r, s, β optimized via the GAs method are (5, 6, 2, 3, and 0.37). Then the
corresponding optimal FAWT basis is constructed and shown in Fig. 35(a). The KE values of each wavelet subband signal
decomposed using the constructed FAWT basis are illustrated in Fig. 35(b), in which the D6 subband takes the maximum KE
value and is selected as the characteristic subband. Fig. 35(c) shows the D6 subband signal and the following features could
be clearly observed:

1) Periodic impulses. It is evident that periodic impulses, namely I1 and I2, occur in Fig. 35(c). The mean interval of the
adjacent impulses is 0.0105 s (95.24 Hz), which is very close to the rotating frequency of gas turbine shaft. It indicates

Please cite this article as: C. Zhang, et al., Weak fault signature extraction of rotating machinery using flexible analytic
wavelet transform, Mech. Syst. Signal Process. (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ymssp.2015.03.030i
 C. Zhang et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]] 23

4
1 Real
Imag
Sensitive subband
0.5 3

Amplitude

KE
0 2

-0.5 1

-1 0
0 50 100 150 1 2 3 4 5 6
Time [samples] Wavelet subband

2
Amplitude [μm]

-2
I2 I2 I2 I2 I2 I2 I2 I2 I2
I1 I1 I1 I1 I1
0 0.05 0.1 0.15
Time [s]
Fig. 35. Results using FAWT: (a) optimal FAWT basis; (b) KE values of wavelet subbands and (c) reconstructed D6 subband signal.

5
Amplitude [μm]

-5

0 0.05 0.1 0.15

Time [s]

5
Amplitude [μm]

-5

0 0.05 0.1 0.15

Time [s]

Fig. 36. Results using dyadic WTs: (a) DWT and (b) DTCWT.

that local impact or friction exists in the gas turbine shaft.

2) Period-doubling vibration behavior corresponding to sub-harmonic components. In Fig. 35(c), it could be clearly
observed that every one strong impulse I1 and two weaker impulses I2 occur alternatively and periodically. The strong
impulses I1 occur every three revolutions with the interval of 0.0315 s (31.75 Hz). It means that the gas turbine shaft
behaves as period-doubling vibration with the period containing three revolutions. The displacement of the turbine shaft
varies every revolution except at the period time; thus the impulse in each revolution has different peaks and the strong
impulses occur every three revolutions. This indicates that the 13X sub-harmonic component exists in the vibration signal.

Consequently, the 1/3 fractional harmonic component and the periodic impulses indicate that the rub-impact fault was
generated in the rotor system. In the inspection afterward, it was found that local friction trace did exist on both the surface
of the hub (rotating with the rotor) and the gas seal (static element). Thus the rub-impact fault is confirmed and the rubbing
position is shown in Fig. 33.

Please cite this article as: C. Zhang, et al., Weak fault signature extraction of rotating machinery using flexible analytic
wavelet transform, Mech. Syst. Signal Process. (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ymssp.2015.03.030i
24 C. Zhang et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]]

0
0.8
1

0.6

Levelk
1.6

2 0.4

2.6
0.2
3
0
0 200 400 600 800 1000
Frequency (Hz)
Amplitude [μm]

-1

-2
0 0.05 0.1 0.15
Time [s]

Fig. 37. Results using spectral kurtosis: (a) Kurtogram and (b) purified signal.

2
Amplitude

-2

0 0.05 0.1 0.15

Time [s]

Fig. 38. SGWT denoising result using the neighboring coefficients.

The same vibration signal is processed via other methods. Fig. 36 shows the wavelet subband signals which are rich in
impulses decomposed using DWT (Db 8 basis) and DTCWT, respectively. The Kurtogram and the resulted signal are
displayed in Fig. 37. Fig. 38 shows the denoising result using SGWT. It indicates that the dyadic WTs and the SGWT denoising
method only detected the strong impulse I1, while they fail to extract the weakest impulse I2 (the second one) in each
period. For SK, the rub-impact fault could not be revealed evidently in their resulted signals. Thus the effectiveness of the
proposed method is well validated.
In this case, we attempt to extract both the strong and weaker impulses which are reduced from the rub-impact fault in
rotor systems. However, the weaker transient impulses are still embedded in the noise using most classical methods like
dyadic WTs, SGWT as well as SK. FAWT enjoys high time–frequency concentration, and could enhance the SNR of
characteristic subband signal and reveal both the strong and weaker impulses effectively.

6. Conclusions

Extracting and revealing the weak periodic fault impulses and their relative amplitude strength from the noisy vibration
signals are of significant importance for fault diagnosis of rotating machinery. The fault components are embedded in strong
background noise and located in some local position of the time–frequency (TF) plane. In this article, we attempt to extract
the weak features using wavelet transform based on two focuses: one is location match—employing proper scale and time
intervals of the adjacent wavelet bases; the other one is shape match—employing proper oscillatory TF atoms which are
most similar to the fault components.
In this article, a new weak fault feature extraction method based on FAWT is proposed. Many intrinsic limitations in
dyadic WT are enhanced by FAWT. Employing arbitrary and fractional scaling and translation factors, FAWT enjoys flexible
TF covering manner of the bases. Moreover, FAWT is near shift-invariant, thanks to its complex basis in which the real and
imaginary parts form Hilbert transform pair. In addition, the oscillatory nature of the FAWT bases is tunable, offering more
choices of TF atoms for fault components detection.

Please cite this article as: C. Zhang, et al., Weak fault signature extraction of rotating machinery using flexible analytic
wavelet transform, Mech. Syst. Signal Process. (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ymssp.2015.03.030i
 C. Zhang et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]] 25

In the procedure of the proposed method, the optimal FAWT basis with respect to the input signal is adaptively and
dynamically designed using genetic algorithms based on the CKE maximization principle. Subsequently, the sensitive
wavelet subband is selected to reveal the weak fault features. The proposed method is tested in the defect detection of
rolling bearing, planetary gearbox and rub-impacted rotor. The results verified the effectiveness of the proposed method and
the weak periodic impulse signature is successfully revealed and extracted.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported financially by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51475356 and
551035007), the Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China (No. 20110201130001), the National
Basic Research Program of China (“973” Program)(No. 2011CB706805), and Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative
Research Team in University (PCSIRT).

References

[1] J. Antoni, R.B. Randall, Differential diagnosis of gear and bearing faults, J. Vib. Acoust. 124 (2002) 165–171.
[2] A.K.S. Jardine, D. Lin, D. Banjevic, A review on machinery diagnostics and prognostics implementing condition-based maintenance, Mech. Syst. Signal
Process. 20 (2006) 1483–1510.
[3] R.B. Randall, Vibration-Based Condition Monitoring: Industrial, Aerospace and Automotive Applications, Wiley, West Sussex, 2011.
[4] C.L. Zhang, B. Li, Z.B. Yang, W.R. Xiao, Z.J. He, Crack location identification of rotating rotor systems using operating deflection shape data, Sci. China
Technol. Sci. 56 (2013) 1723–1732.
[5] W. Cheng, S. Lee, Z. Zhang, Z. He, Independent component analysis based source number estimation and its comparison for mechanical systems,
J. Sound Vib. 331 (2012) 5153–5167.
[6] H. Jiang, Jin Chen, G. Dong, T. Liu, G. Chen, Study on Hankel matrix-based SVD and its application in rolling element bearing fault diagnosis, Mech. Syst.
Signal Process. 52–53 (2015) 338–359.
[7] K.F. Al-Raheem, A. Roy, K. Ramachandran, D. Harrison, S. Grainger, Application of the Laplace–wavelet combined with ANN for rolling bearing fault
diagnosis, J. Vib. Acoust. 130 (2008).
[8] A. Aherwar, An investigation on gearbox fault detection using vibration analysis techniques: a review, Aust. J. Mech. Eng. 10 (2012) 169.
[9] Q.B. He, P. Li, F.R. Kong, Rolling bearing localized defect evaluation by multiscale signature via empirical mode decomposition, J. Vib. Acoust. 134
(2012).
[10] P. Kankar, S.C. Sharma, S. Harsha, Fault diagnosis of rolling element bearing using cyclic autocorrelation and wavelet transform, Neurocomputing 110
(2013) 9–17.
[11] R.Q. Yan, R.X. Gao, X.F. Chen, Wavelets for fault diagnosis of rotary machines: a review with applications, Signal Process. 96 (2014) 1–10.
[12] B.Q. Chen, Z.S. Zhang, Y.Y. Zi, Z.J. He, C. Sun, Detecting of transient vibration signatures using an improved fast spatial-spectral ensemble kurtosis
kurtogram and its applications to mechanical signature analysis of short duration data from rotating machinery, Mech. Syst. Signal Process. 40 (2013)
1–37.
[13] H. Qiu, J. Lee, J. Lin, G. Yu, Wavelet filter-based weak signature detection method and its application on rolling element bearing prognostics, J. Sound
Vib. 289 (2006) 1066–1090.
[14] S.G. Mallat, A theory for multiresolution signal decomposition: the wavelet representation, IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell. 11 (1989) 674–693.
[15] R.Q. Yan, R.X. Gao, Harmonic wavelet-based data filtering for enhanced machine defect identification, J. Sound Vib. 329 (2010) 3203–3217.
[16] S. Hou, Y. Li, Z. Wang, A resonance demodulation method based on harmonic wavelet transform for rolling bearing fault diagnosis, Struct. Health
Monit. 9 (2010) 297–312.
[17] S. Mallat, A Wavelet Tour of Signal Processing: The Sparse Way, Academic press, Burlington, 2008.
[18] M.H. Lim, M.S. Leong, Diagnosis for loose blades in gas turbines using wavelet analysis, J. Eng. Gas Turbines Power 127 (2005) 314–322.
[19] X. Chiementin, F. Bolaers, J.-P. Dron, Early detection of fatigue damage on rolling element bearings using adapted wavelet, J. Vib. Acoust. 129 (2007)
495–506.
[20] W.J. Wang, P.D. McFadden, Application of orthogonal wavelets to early gear damage detection, Mech. Syst. Signal Process. 9 (5) (1995) 497–507.
[21] A. Djebala, N. Ouelaa, N. Hamzaoui, Detection of rolling bearing defects using discrete wavelet analysis, Meccanica 43 (3) (2008) 339–348.
[22] R.R. Coifman, Y. Meyer, S. Quake, M.V. Wickerhauser, Signal processing and compression with wavelet packets, Wavelets Appl. 442 (1994) 363–379.
[23] M.L. Hilton, Wavelet and wavelet packet compression of electrocardiograms, IEEE Trans. Biomed. Eng. 44 (1997) 394–402.
[24] B. Liu, Selection of wavelet packet basis for rotating machinery fault diagnosis, J. Sound Vib. 284 (2005) 567–582.
[25] N.G. Kingsbury, The dual-tree complex wavelet transform: a new technique for shift invariance and directional filters, in: Proceedings of the IEEE
Digital Signal Processing Workshop, vol. 86, Bryce Canyon, 1988, pp. 120–131.
[26] N. Kingsbury, Complex wavelets for shift invariant analysis and filtering of signals, Appl. Comput. Harmon. Anal. 10 (2001) 234–253.
[27] Y. Wang, Z. He, Y. Zi, Enhancement of signal denoising and multiple fault signatures detecting in rotating machinery using dual-tree complex wavelet
transform, Mech. Syst. Signal Process. 24 (2010) 119–137.
[28] Z. Chen, J. Xu, D. Yang, New method of extracting weak failure information in gearbox by complex wavelet denoising, Chin. J. Mech. Eng. 21 (4) (2008)
87–91.
[29] W. Sweldens, The lifting scheme: a construction of second generation wavelets, SIAM J. Math. Anal. 29 (2) (1998) 511–546.
[30] B. Chen, Z. Zhang, C. Sun, B. Li, Y. Zi, Z. He, Fault feature extraction of gearbox by using overcomplete rational dilation discrete wavelet transform on
signals measured from vibration sensors, Mech. Syst. Signal Process. 33 (2012) 275–298.
[31] J. Yuan, Z. He, Y. Zi, Y. Lei, Z. Li, Adaptive multiwavelets via two-scale similarity transforms for rotating machinery fault diagnosis, Mech. Syst. Signal
Process. 23 (2009) 1490–1508.
[32] I. Bayram, An analytic wavelet transform with a flexible time–frequency covering, IEEE Trans. Signal Process. 61 (2013) 1131–1142.
[33] Z. Feng, M. Liang, F. Chu, Recent advances in time–frequency analysis methods for machinery fault diagnosis: a review with application examples,
Mech. Syst. Signal Process. 38 (2013) 165–205.
[34] R.X. Gao, R.Q. Yan, Wavelets: Theory and Applications for Manufacturing, Springer Science & Business Media, 2011.
[35] I. Bayram, I.W. Selesnick, Frequency-domain design of overcomplete rational-dilation wavelet transforms, IEEE Trans. Signal Process. 57 (2009)
2957–2972.
[36] W.P. He, Y.Y. Zi, B.Q. Chen, F. Wu, Z.J. He, Automatic fault feature extraction of mechanical anomaly on induction motor bearing using ensemble super-
wavelet transform, Mech. Syst. Signal Process. 54–55 (2015) 457–480.
[37] J. Antoni, Orthogonal-like fractional-octave-band filters, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 127 (2) (2010) p884895.

Please cite this article as: C. Zhang, et al., Weak fault signature extraction of rotating machinery using flexible analytic
wavelet transform, Mech. Syst. Signal Process. (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ymssp.2015.03.030i
26 C. Zhang et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing ] (]]]]) ]]]–]]]

[38] R. Yu, A new shift-invariance of discrete-time systems and its application to discrete wavelet transform analysis, IEEE Trans. Signal Process. 57 (2009)
2527–2537.
[39] Z. Michalewicz, Genetic Algorithms þData Structures¼Evolution Programs, Springer, New York, 1992.
[40] J.L. Chen, Y.Y. Zi, Z.J. He, J. Yuan, Improved spectral kurtosis with adaptive redundant multiwavelet packet and its applications for rotating machinery
fault detection, Meas. Sci. Technol. 23 (2012) 045608.
[41] S.-H. Chang, F.-T. Wang, Application of the robust discrete wavelet transform to signal detection in underwater sound, Int. J. Electron. 90 (2003)
361–371.
[42] C.D. Duan, Z.J. He, Second generation wavelet denoising and its application in machinery monitoring and diagnosis, Minimicro Syst. 25 (2004)
1341–1343.
[43] J. Lee, H. Qiu, G. Yu, J. Lin, Rexnord Technical Services, “Bearing Data Set”, IMS, University of Cincinnati, NASA Ames Prognostics Data Repository, NASA
Ames, Moffett Field, CA, 〈http://ti.arc.nasa.gov/project/prognostic-data-repository〉.
[44] L. Niu, H. Cao, Z. He, Y. Li, Dynamic modeling and vibration response simulation for high speed rolling ball bearings, J. Manuf. Sci. Eng. 136 (4) (2014)
041015.
[45] J. Antoni, R. Randall, The spectral kurtosis: application to the vibratory surveillance and diagnostics of rotating machines, Mech. Syst. Signal Process. 20
(2006) 308–331.
[46] J. Antoni, Fast computation of the kurtogram for the detection of transient faults, Mech. Syst. Signal Process. 21 (2007) 108–124.
[47] Z.P. Feng, M. Liang, Y. Zhang, S.M. Hou, Fault diagnosis for wind turbine planetary gearboxes via demodulation analysis based on ensemble empirical
mode decomposition and energy separation, Renew. Energy 47 (2012) 112–126.
[48] N.Q. Hu, M. Chen, X.S. Wen, The application of stochastic resonance theory for early detecting rub-impact fault of rotor system, Mech. Syst. Signal
Process. 17 (2003) 883–895.
[49] F.L. Chu, W.X. Lu, Experimental observation of nonlinear vibrations in a rub-impact rotor system, J. Sound Vib. 283 (2005) 621–643.

Please cite this article as: C. Zhang, et al., Weak fault signature extraction of rotating machinery using flexible analytic
wavelet transform, Mech. Syst. Signal Process. (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ymssp.2015.03.030i