Tribology International 61 (2013) 224234

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Tribology International
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/triboint

Detection and diagnosis of surface wear failure in a spur geared system using
EEMD based vibration signal analysis
M. Amarnath a,n, I.R. Praveen Krishna b
a
b

Department of Mechanical Engineering, PDPM-Indian Institute of Information Technology Design and Manufacturing, Jabalpur, Jabalpur 482001, India
Machine Design Section, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai 600036, India

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 11 February 2012
Received in revised form
23 December 2012
Accepted 3 January 2013
Available online 23 January 2013

Gears are used for transmission of power, motion or both. Under increased power and higher speeds,
tribological failures such as scufng, pitting, mild wear and tooth breakage are of major concern.
This paper presents the results of experimental investigations carried out to assess wear in spur gears of
a back-to-back gear box under accelerated test conditions. The studies considered the estimation of
specic lubricant lm thickness and its effects on the fault growth on gear teeth surface. Ensemble
empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) technique is used to extract the fault related features from the
vibration signals acquired from the gearbox. The results highlight the advantage of EEMD technique for
effective assessment of wear in spur gears.
& 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Spur gears
Lubricant lm thickness
Empirical mode decomposition
Kurtosis values

1. Introduction
The aim of using gears is mainly to transmit power or rotary
motion between shafts and to maintain the intended angular
velocity ratio, together with smooth motion transfer at high
efciency. When faults occur on one or more gear teeth, the
performance of the gear train deteriorates and the efciency
decreases. When gears operate at their maximum load, very high
contact pressure occurs at their mesh interface. This may lead to
partial breakdown of the lubricant lm at the mesh surface, thus
resulting in two commonly encountered regimes, the elastohydrodynamic and boundary lubrication conditions. Further, gear
failures like wear, scufng, micropitting and pitting are inuenced
by the lubricant lm thickness, viscosity, etc. Methods to predict
gear failure are often related to lm thickness and specic lm
thickness, which are an indication of contact severity or of
possibility of lubricant breakdown. In these methods, lubricant
properties play an important role, since they have a strong
inuence on lm thickness. Literature strongly supports the
dependency of distributed faults in gear transmission systems
on lm thickness, specic lm thickness, stiffness reduction and
subsequent increase in vibration parameters [14].
Moore [5] developed a procedure for calculating lm thickness
and various examples were considered to demonstrate estimation

Corresponding author. Tel.: 91 9425805414; fax: 91 44 22574652.

E-mail addresses: amarnath.cmy@gmail.com,
amarnath@iiitdmj.ac.in (M. Amarnath).
0301-679X/$ - see front matter & 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.triboint.2013.01.001

of lubricant lm thickness. Peng and Kessissoglou [6] investigated

and established a correlation between vibration and wear debris
analysis. Wear source assessment was carried out by chemical
composition analysis and particle morphology, which provided
information regarding wear mechanism. Vibration data was
measured and analyzed in conjunction with wear source analysis,
thus utilizing the effectiveness of both the methods.
Tan and Mba [7] established a general relationship between
vibration and acoustic emission signals along with the gearbox
operating conditions such as oil lm thickness, load and speed.
Authors have suggested that various indicators from different
monitoring techniques must be used simultaneously in order to
establish and explain the observed wear phenomena. The most
ideal situation is to use various techniques at the same time to
monitor the gearbox health status. Tan et al. [8] reported an
experimental investigation on spur gears in which natural pitting
was allowed to occur. The authors observed that the rate of
change of three parameters i.e. Fe concentration, acoustic emission and vibration root mean square value (rms) with respect to
gear box operating time increased with increasing applied torque.
Vibration signal analysis becomes too complex in the presence
of faults though they can be measured easily. In this context
researchers were forced to pay attention on signal processing
tools such as short time Fourier transform (STFT), wavelet
analysis, empirical mode decomposition and others. Yu et al. [9]
implemented HilbertHuang Transform (HHT) and its energy
distribution in timefrequency planes to diagnose faults in gears.
The effectiveness of timefrequency entropy based on HHT
signals was highlighted in their work. Yesilyurt [10] calculated

M. Amarnath, I.R.Praveen Krishna / Tribology International 61 (2013) 224234

Nomenclature

Zo
u
E0
E1, E2

s1, s2
r
d0,1, d0,2

absolute viscosity
peripheral velocity
combined Youngs modulusE0 2E1 E2 =E2 1s21
E1 1s22
modulus of elasticity for gear and pinion respectively
Poissons ratio for gear and pinion materials
effective radius of curvature of the two surfaces
1=r 2=Sinb1=d0,1 1=d0,2
diameters of gear and pinion respectively

tooth stiffness by considering bending, shear and rim deformations on a spur gear tooth theoretically. Measurements were
made to validate the analytical ndings. Statistical parameters
such as rms, peak-to-peak and kurtosis values of time domain
acceleration signals were computed. Kurtosis values showed
irregular trend with increase in wear severity under accelerated
test conditions. Experiments were conducted by Amarnath et al.
[11] to asses surface wear propagation in spur gears. The authors
used stiffness modeling, vibration measurement and lubricant
lm thickness estimation for wear severity analysis. Specic
lubricant lm thickness l was found to decrease during prolonged period of operating hours (Fig. 1) this decrease in lubricant
lm thickness was correlated to decrease in stiffness and wear
mechanism observed on the teeth surface.
Loutridis [12] studied the effectiveness of empirical mode
decomposition (EMD) method in spur gear fault diagnosis.
The defect analysis was done comparing the energies of intrinsic
mode functions (IMF), which exhibits high sensitivity to gear
damage. Statistical moments are the descriptors of shape of the
amplitude distribution of vibration data.
The fourth normalized statistical moment, kurtosis, is the
major diagnostic index and kurtosis value has been widely used
for detection of rolling element bearing damage. The main short
coming of this method is its higher susceptibility to spurious
effect of noise and high frequency content in measured vibration
signals. Based on the fact that, in some cases, the adverse effect of
spurious vibrations on the values of kurtosis is more than the
benet gained from the higher sensitivity of kurtosis to incipient
faults in machine elements of rotating machinery. EMD based
kurtosis values are the alternative statistical parameters to overcome the aforementioned drawbacks [13,14].
Parey et al. [15] carried out both simulation and experimental
work to validate the effectiveness of EMD technique in determining the gear fault severity. Statistical parameters such as crest
factor and kurtosis of EMD signal were used to enhance the fault

w
F
FU
db
M
b

l
R
Ra

225

mesh angle
normal tooth force per unit width F=b
normal tooth force F F U =cos b
peripheral force2M=db
pitch circle diameter
torque
tooth width
specic lm thickness
combined surface roughness
root mean square surface roughness

diagnostic information. Parey and Tandon [16] presented an

analytical model, relating vibration signal to the defect size on
the gear tooth ank. Defect growth was evaluated using rms and
kurtosis values of the intrinsic modes of the decomposed vibration signals. Kurtosis of EMD signal showed better sensitivity
compared to kurtosis of the vibration signal for fault severity. Lei
et al. [17] and Zvokelj et al. [18] highlighted the shortcomings of
EMD method. The major drawback of the original EMD is the
frequent appearance of mode mixing, which is dened as a single
IMF either consisting of widely disparate scales, or a signal of a
similar scale residing in different IMF components. To overcome
this problem, the authors introduced ensemble empirical mode
decomposition (EEMD) as a solution to reduce mode mixing
effect.
However in the view of enhancing the fault diagnostic information of wear severity on spur gear teeth, advanced signal
processing techniques viz. EMD and EEMD methods have been
considered in the present work. Statistical parameters such as
kurtosis, skewness, crest factor, rms and impulse factor values are
extracted from decomposed vibration signals. Results provide a
good fault diagnostic information in gear transmission system
using the proposed methods, thus improving the condition
monitoring capability of the geared system.

2. Experimental setup
The experimental setup in back to back arrangement used for
this study is shown in Fig. 2. The aim of the experiment was to
initiate and propagate wear under accelerated test conditions.
The arrangement consists of two parallel steel shafts and four
gears (two pinions with 25 teeth and the other two gears with 50
teeth) and a pair of pinions and gears has been assembled on
either side of the shafts. The gear sets are made of En 34 steel
(without any heat treatment). The gears with 25 and 50 teeth had

Fig. 1. Lubricant lm thickness obtained from accelerated tests [11].

226

Electric motor

M. Amarnath, I.R.Praveen Krishna / Tribology International 61 (2013) 224234

Test gear box

Slave gear box

Rigid coupling

25 teeth

most reliable approach for investigating and testing a gear

system. In the present experiment, the gearbox was operated at
2100 rpm under accelerated test conditions (i.e. at 360 Nm and at
413 Nm), these torques being more than 45 times the allowable
torque.
2.2. Instruments and sensors

50 teeth

Torque shaft
Torque locking nut

Torque adjustment
coupling

Fig. 2. Experimental setup.

Table 1
Dimensions, specications and test conditions of the gears.
Pinion
Center distance (mm)
Pitch diameter (mm)
Module (mm)
Number of teeth
Face width (mm)
Pressure angle (degree)
BHN

Gear
150

100
4
25
25
201
130

200
50

Material properties of Gears

Youngs modulus (N/mm2)
Poissons ratio
Material (steel)
Shear modulus G (N/mm2)

2  105
0.3
En 19, 0.22 % Carbon
0.8  105

Test conditions
Pinion speed (rpm)
Static load (N)
Lever arm L (mm)
Torque on gear wheel shaft

2100 rpm
0690 N
600
0413 Nm

a module of 4 mm and pressure angle of 201. Table 1 gives the

dimensions and specications of the gearbox used for the present
study, as well as the test conditions. The torque adjustment
coupling connects the two shafts onto one axle. The ends of the
axle are connected to the two pinions. Another axle that has two
gears on the ends is connected to a 10 HP three phase induction
motor which was used to transmit power to the main shaft with a
reduction ratio of 0.7. The simplest way of introducing static
torque into the system is to include a special torque coupling
connected between the input shafts. This coupling is such that its
halves can be clamped together in any relative angular position
by bolts, the heads of which are located in circular T-slots in the
face of one half coupling. Thus when the clamping bolts are
released, one half is held stationary, while on the other half the
torque is applied through a lever arm. The torque applied is
measured and the coupling is then clamped. In conventional gear
test experiments, the torque on gears is given by external loading,
such as a magnetic brake and the motor has to be carefully
controlled for different shaft speeds under the specied torque.
In torque coupling, on the other hand, the anges are locked in
the shaft loop and the applied torque remains constant for any
motor speed.
2.1. Operating conditions
This arrangement does not need any external load and reduces
the complexity of designing the driving system. It has been the

A commercial data acquisition system DACTRON (model

FOCUS-100) was used to acquire the vibration data from the
gearbox housing. B&K 4332 accelerometer was mounted on the
bearing housing and was used to capture vibration data.
The signals from the accelerometer in the frequency range 0
8 kHz were amplied with a B&K 2626 signal conditioning
amplier and these signals were sampled at 16 kHz before being
fed into a personal computer for further processing. This frequency range was sufcient to reveal the frequency content of
vibration approximately up to the fth tooth mesh harmonic. The
oil bath temperature was measured through an opening on the
top of the gear box casing using a thermocouple probe. The
location for acquiring oil temperature was adjacent to the gear
mesh position. The oil bath temperature was measured and
recorded throughout the test at every half hour interval. A k-type
(chromelalumel) thermocouple, rated for operation in the temperature range 01400 1C was employed to measure oil temperature which in turn used for computation of oil lm thickness.

3. Lubricant lm thickness, empirical mode decomposition

(EMD) and ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD)
An experimental work carried out by Amaranth et al. [11]
explored effects of reduction in lubricant lm thickness and gear
tooth stiffness in a spur geared system. Estimation of lubricant
lm thickness and specic lubricant lm thickness were carried
out using Dowsons equation [2], these equations and corresponding parameters are given in Appendix A. The Empirical mode
decomposition is a new data processing method, with which any
complicated data set can be decomposed into several IMFs by a
procedure called the sifting process. For example; to decompose a
signal x(t) the sifting processes is carried out by constructing the
upper and lower envelope of x(t) by constructing local maxima
and local minima through a cubic spline. The mean of the two
envelopes is then computed from the original time history.
The difference between the original time history and the mean
value c1 is called the rst IMF if it satises the following
conditions: (1) within the data range, the number of zero crossings is equal or differs by only one and (2) the envelope dened
by local maxima and the envelope dened by the local minima
are symmetric with respect to the mean. The difference between
x(t) and c1 is then treated as new time history and subjected to
the same sifting process, giving the second IMF. The EMD
procedure continues until the residue becomes so small that it is
less than a predetermined value of consequence or the residue
becomes monotonic function. The original time history x(t) is nally
expressed as the sum of the IMF components plus the nal residue.
xt

n
X

ci t r n t

i1

where n is the number of IMF components and rn(t) is the nal

residue [19].
In order to overcome the short comings of mode mixing in
EMD method, Wu and Haung [20] proposed a new noise assisted
signal analysis technique named as Ensemble Empirical Mode
Decomposition (EEMD) which signicantly reduces the possibility
of mode mixing in EMD and preserves dyadic properties of the

M. Amarnath, I.R.Praveen Krishna / Tribology International 61 (2013) 224234

decomposed signal. Hence EEMD technique reveals a major

improvement in extraction of diagnostic information from nonstationary signals. The EEMD decomposition algorithms of original signal x(t) can be dened as

i. A numerically generated white noise n(t) is added to original

time series signal x(t) to generate a new y(t) x(t) bn(t),
where b is the magnitude of numerically generated white
noise.
ii. EMD signal calculated from Eq. (1) is used to decompose the
newly generated signal y(t) into IMFs.
iii. Steps (i) ad (ii) are repeated for M times with different white
noise series each time to obtain an ensemble of IMFs
M
fc1i tg, fc2i tg,: . . .::, fcm
i tg, . . .:, fci tg where fi 1,2,. . .. . .:ng

2
iv. Ensemble means of the corresponding IMFs of the decomposed signals are calculated by
c i t

M
1 X
cm t
Mm1 i

Recently, this method has been used in the condition monitoring of rotating machinery [17,18]. In the view of enhancing the
diagnostic information from vibration signals, the experimental
work presented in this paper considers ensemble empirical mode
decomposition of vibration signals in conjunction with specic
lm thickness analysis. Ensemble empirical mode decomposition
method is used to extract kurtosis value which is an important
indicator to detect faults in rotating machines. The results
obtained from ensemble empirical mode decomposition and
specic lm thickness analyses are compared and correlated with
severity of fault propagation on gear teeth to obtain reliable
diagnostic information.

4. Results and discussions

Figs. 3 and 4 depict vibration signals of a healthy gear and
worn gears after accelerated wear tests 1 and 2 respectively. The
X-axis in the time domain indicates time in seconds and Y-axis is
acceleration in m/s2. The kurtosis values computed from the
unprocessed vibration signals does not reveal any signicant
diagnostic information.
EMD method is used to extract kurtosis values from the
vibration signals, 12 IMFs (IMF1 to IMF12) have been computed
and the corresponding kurtosis values were considered to obtain
diagnostic information. Vibration signals have been decomposed
into different frequencies i.e. IMF1, IMF2,IMF3,IMF4,IMF5 and
IMF6 and the corresponding frequencies are 6.2 kHz, 4 kHz,
2.8 kHz, 1.72 kHz, 900 Hz and 600 Hz. respectively.
Tables 2 and 3 give kurtosis values of rst six intrinsic mode
functions (IMF1IMF 6) of vibration signals computed from
healthy gear box acquired at 0 h and accelerated test conditions
of 360 Nm and 413 Nm over 108 h of time duration for each test.
Intrinsic mode functions after sixth IMF (c7 to c12) fall below gear
mesh frequency region (875 Hz) and hence these modes have
been ignored. Generally higher frequency harmonics encompass
fault diagnostic information of gears/ball bearings, because of the
Table 2
Kurtosis values of Intrinsic Mode Function (IMF1IMF6) obtained from Empirical
mode decomposition (EMD) for accelerated test 1.

150

Operating
time

(c1)
IMF1

(c2)
IMF2

(c3)
IMF3

(c4)
IMF4

(c5)
IMF5

(c6)
IMF6

0h
27 h
54 h
81 h
108 h

3.5207
4.1425
4.3621
5.9559
5.4854

3.2473
3.6351
4.104
4.2741
4.6834

7.1087
3.506
3.0347
4.1343
5.014

5.3553
3.455
2.562
2.9352
4.841

6.3563
3.6045
3.0288
3.0953
5.3456

9.0286
4.5559
5.9643
5.3175
4.982

150
Kurtosis = 2.1

100

kurtosis = 3.0

100

50

50
m/s2

m/s2

227

-50

-50

-100

-100

-150
0

1000

2000

3000

-150

4000

1000

2000

3000

Time (O.25 s)

Time (0.25 s)

Healthy pinion

108 hours

4000

Fig. 3. Vibration signals in time domainAccelerated test 1.

150

150
Kurtosis = 4.2

Kurtosis = 3.4

100

100
50
m/s2

m/s2

50
0

-50

-50

-100

-100

-150
0

1000

2000

3000

4000

-150
0

1000

2000

Time (0.25 s)

Time (0.25 s)

0 hour

108 hours

Fig. 4. Vibration signals in time domainAccelerated test 2.

3000

4000

228

M. Amarnath, I.R.Praveen Krishna / Tribology International 61 (2013) 224234

Table 3
Kurtosis values of Intrinsic Mode Function (IMF1IMF6) obtained from Empirical
mode decomposition (EMD) for accelerated test 2.
Operating
time

(c1)
IMF1

(c2)
IMF2

(c3)
IMF3

(c4)
IMF4

(c5)
IMF5

(c6)
IMF6

0h
27 h
54 h
81 h
108 h

6.424
5.1318
7.4681
6.9143
6.6163

5.1764
5.6981
6.0349
6.2933
6.513

4.1254
2.9176
5.013
4.1343
6.1864

2.847
4.2342
5.5491
2.9352
5.5129

6.3412
9.0679
6.6.12
3.0953
16.504

9.388
8.941
6.976
5.3175
5.9518

Back - to - back power recirculation type spur gearbox

Acquire vibration signal using accelerometer

Signal conditioning and data acquisition

Kurtosis Values

4
3

Extract kurtosis values from raw vibration signals

2
1

EEMD
50% noise

EEMD

40% noise

EEMD
30% noise

EEMD
20% noise

EMD

method

signal

Vibration

EEMD
10% noise

Decompose vibration signals into IMFs

using EMD method

Decompose vibration signals into IMFs using

EEMD method

Plot

Plot

Fig. 5. Kurtosis values of vibration signal calculated using EMD and EEMD
methods.

presence of gear mesh frequencies/ball pass frequencies.

The selection of mode function is important and it depends on
the nature of the signal under investigation. In the present
experiment, the frequency value of second IMF is 4 kHz, this
frequency corresponds to fourth harmonic of gear mesh frequency, in general up to fourth multiple of gear mesh frequency
is used to detect and diagnose the fault growth in gear transmission system, hence for the present case 4 kHz frequency range is
considered. The second intrinsic mode function c2 showed a
gradual increase in kurtosis values, which indicate the propagation surface wear on gear teeth.
Shortcomings of EMD method is discussed in Section 1, hence
to enhance the diagnostic information; ensemble intrinsic mode
decomposition (EEMD) method is applied on the same vibration
data. Attempts are made to compare EMD and EEMD methods,
Fig. 5 shows comparison of kurtosis value obtained from unprocessed vibration signal and kurtosis values of vibration signal
based on EMD and EEMD methods. Vibration signal analysis using
EEMD method has been carried out using algorithms discussed in
Section 3. White noise is added to the vibration signal in steps of
10%, 20%, 30%, 40% and 50%. Maximum kurtosis value 4.3 is
obtained at 40% white noise present in the vibration signal.
Further, at higher percentage of white noise levels the kurtosis
value shows decrease in trend, hence 40% white noise has been
considered to extract kurtosis values from the gear box vibration
signals.
Vibration signals are acquired and recorded after proper signal
conditioning. The acquired signals are decomposed using EMD
and EEMD methods developed in MATLAB 6.5. Fig. 6 shows the
signal analysis procedure.
Fig. 7(a)(f) and (g)(l) and Fig. 8(a)(f) and (g)(l) show rst
six IMFs (c1c6) of EEMD of vibration signals of a healthy gear and
worn gear after accelerated test 1 and 2 respectively. EEMD based
kurtosis values of these vibration signals are computed and
tabulated in Tables 4 and 5. It can be observed from the tables

Extract kurtosis values of intrinsic modes of EMD

and EEMD methods and compare with kurtosis
values of raw vibration signals

Plot

Fig. 6. Flow diagram of signal acquisition and processing.

that, rst two IMFs show overall increase in trend, because these
IMFs contain higher harmonics of gear mesh frequencies. Second
intrinsic mode function c2 of EEMD shows a gradual increase in
trend. Hence second intrinsic mode function c2 has been considered for detection and diagnosis of propagating wear on gear
teeth. Further, kurtosis values of vibration signals and EMD based
kurtosis values are also considered for comparison. Figs. 9 and 10
show comparisons and correlations of these results along with
the specic lubricant lm thickness l. Decrease in specic
lubricant lm thickness is closely associated with teeth surface
wear severity and increase in wear on teeth surface triggers
increase in vibration levels. The specic lm thickness values
have been taken from our previous work [11]. In Fig. 9, for
accelerated test 1, lmax and lmin values which are plotted on
the left, decrease with respect to time, this decrease in specic
lm thickness is due to the increase in temperature and consequent changes in viscosity, kurtosis values of raw vibration
signals, kurtosis values extracted from second IMFs of EMD and
EEMD are plotted in the same gure against the scale on left.
From the gures it can be seen that kurtosis value of raw
vibration signal decreases at 27 h of operation during accelerated
test 1 and decrease in kurtosis value is also observed at 54 h of
accelerated test 2, hence kurtosis values fail to show a reliable
diagnostic information on gear teeth surface wear, where as
kurtosis values obtained from the second IMF (c2) of EMD method
increases from 3.3 to 4.6 for healthy and worn conditions of gear
over a period of 108 h at a load of 360 Nm. Further, during second
accelerated test condition (413 Nm, 108 h) kurtosis values

100

50

50
c1

(m/s2)

100

c1

(m/s )

M. Amarnath, I.R.Praveen Krishna / Tribology International 61 (2013) 224234

-50

-100
1000

2000

3000

4000

100

50

50

1000

2000

3000

4000

100

50

50
c3

100

4000

1000

2000

3000

4000

1000

2000

3000

4000

1000

2000

3000

4000

1000

2000

3000

4000

1000

2000

3000

4000

-100

-100
0

1000

2000

3000

4000

100

50

50
2

(m/s )

100

c4

c4

3000

-50

-50

(m/s )

2000

-100
0

(m/s2)

c3

(m/s2)

-100

-100

0
-50

-50

-100
0

1000

2000

3000

4000

100

50

50
2

(m/s )

100

c5

c5

1000

-50

-50

(m/s )

c2

c2

(m/s )

100

(m/s )

-100

0
-50

-50

-100
0

1000

2000

3000

4000

100

100

50

50
c6

0
-50
-100

(m/s2)

c6

0
-50

-100

(m/s2)

229

0
-50

1000

2000
Time (0.125 S)

3000

4000

-100

Time (0.125 S)

Fig. 7. IMFs of (c1c6) vibration signalAccelerated test 1: (a)(f) IMFs of Healthy pinion and (g)(l) IMFs of worn pinion after 108 h.

100

50

50

c1

100

(m / s )

c1

M. Amarnath, I.R.Praveen Krishna / Tribology International 61 (2013) 224234

(m / s )

230

-50

-50

-100
0

1000

2000

3000

4000

100

50

50
c2

100

(m / s )

c2

(m / s )

-100

1000

2000

3000

4000

100

50

50

c3

100

1000

2000

3000

4000

50

c4

50

(m / s )

c4

(m / s )

-100
0

100

1000

2000

3000

4000

100

50

50

c5

(m / s )

c5

(m / s )

-100
0

-50

1000

2000

3000

4000

1000

2000

1000

2000

3000

4000

1000

2000

3000

4000

1000

2000

3000

4000

3000

4000

-50

1000

2000

3000

-100

4000

100

50

50

c6

100

-50

(m / s )

c6

100

-100

4000

-50

-50

-100

3000

100

-100

2000

-50

-50

-100

1000

-100
0

(m / s )

c3

(m / s )

-100

-50

-50

(m / s )

-50

1000

2000
Time (0.25 s)

3000

4000

-100

Time (0.25 s)

Fig. 8. IMFs of (c1c6) vibration signalAccelerates test 2: (a)(f) IMFs after 0 h and (k)(l) IMFs of worn pinion after 108 h.

M. Amarnath, I.R.Praveen Krishna / Tribology International 61 (2013) 224234

increase from 4.81 to 6.13; a gradual increasing trend can be

observed in Figs. 9 and 10. EEMD method has the advantage of
overcoming the short comings (mode mixing) in EMD. Kurtosis
values obtained from EEMD method increase from 3.46 to 5.82
and 6.11 to 7.9 for the accelerated tests 1 and 2 respectively;
these values are higher than those obtained from EMD method.
This increase in trend has a signicant advantage in detection of
fault growth in their early stage; hence kurtosis values extracted
from EEMD method provide better diagnostic information.
Further, from Figs. 9 and 10 it can be observed that the specic
lm thickness reduces gradually from no damage to probable
damage condition. Specically during accelerated test 2, l was
found to be less than 1.4 for considerably long time duration.
The larger decrease in l at this load is due to cumulative damage
that has occurred at higher loads. This operating condition propagates distributed faults on gear teeth i.e. the initiation of pitting is
conned to three areas of tooth prole, i.e. (i) pitch line (ii) the area
above or below the pitch line and (iii) tip contact. In the present
work, pitting was found on the above-mentioned areas. Lubricant
lm plays a signicant role to prevent the propagation of
tooth damage in heavily loaded geared transmission system.
Performance of lubrication depends on various parameters such
as chemical, environmental, thermodynamic and rheological
Table 4
Kurtosis values of Intrinsic Mode Function (IMF1IMF6) obtained from Ensemble
Empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) for accelerated test 1.
Operating
time

(c1)
IMF1

(c2)
IMF2

(c3)
IMF3

(c4)
IMF4

(c5)
IMF5

(c6) IMF6

0h
27 h
54 h
81 h
108 h

4.6674
5.2492
4.7961
5.1426
4.9103

3.9545
4.0763
4.4495
5.1601
5.4984

6.1612
4.4323
2.6012
4.5061
5.180

4.5811
3.1871
2.4743
7.455
3.816

3.2562
3.6174
3.9184
9.6044
5.3711

11.746
4.0107
20.665
5.5559
7.0284

Table 5
Kurtosis values of Intrinsic Mode Function (IMF1IMF6) obtained from Ensemble
Empirical mode decomposition ( EEMD) for accelerated test 2.
Operating
time

(c1)
IMF1

(c2)
IMF2

(c3)
IMF3

(c4)
IMF4

(c5)
IMF5

(c6)
IMF6

0h
27 h
54 h
81 h
108 h

5.407
5.1674
5.4648
5.9439
6.7181

6.0623
6.4098
6.552
6.7029
7.9939

4.5407
6.2857
3.1264
5.9261
8.2956

2.9445
8.989
4.2369
2.6076
4.1632

3.0812
9.59974
5.4398
2.9337
7.842

6.8258
7.9349
15.558
9.4038
8.7151

231

properties. These properties ensure mild wear in gear teeth

contact [21,22]. At the initial stage of power transmission in
geared system, mild wear emerges as mirror like surfaces on gear
teeth thereby providing positive input on gear performance.
Fig. 11 depicts mild wear along with micropitting after 36 h.
Further, gradual decrease in specic lm thickness propagates
micropitting, macropitting and scufng defects. Scufng showed
in gure appeared due to critical temperature at which lubricant
lm fails and micro-welding between asperities takes place.
The detailed observations made on scoring and pitting rates in
relation to the gear face area such as addendum, pitch and
dedendum as a function of time can be seen in Fig. 11. At the initial
stage, the pitting growth shows much slower rates and is localized
over a few teeth only, whereas for higher applied torque conditions
and prolonged operating time (360413 Nm over 216 h), distributed
faults are seen to spread across to other teeth. Higher torque
transmission results in rolling contact fatigue in gear teeth thereby
developing fatigue cracks which result in detachment of material
fragments from the gear tooth surface [23,24]. The gear teeth
contact fatigue normally starts with the surface distress, prolonged
operation under such condition causes spalling defect, this defect
observed on gear tooth after 162 h is showed in gure.
Only, EMD and EEMD based kurtosis values showed better
increase in trend, due to sensitivity of these methods, higher
kurtosis values are obtained which can be used to detect propagation of gear faults at the early stage. Hence, wear severity
assessment of spur gear using kurtosis values obtained from
EEMD method in conjunction with lm thickness values reveal
reliable diagnostic information, which is useful in assessment of
surface wear growth on gear teeth.
Kurtosis values along with the higher order statistical values
such as crest factor, impulse indicator, skewness and root mean
square values of raw vibration signals for two accelerated test
conditions are also considered for assessment of wear propagation on gear teeth and shown in Appendix Tables A1 and A2
respectively. Attempts were made to extract fault diagnostic
information using the above mentioned higher order statistical
parameters of the EEMD method; Tables A3, A4, A5, A6, A7, A8,
A9, A10 give these values, but these values reduce after decomposition and are found to be less than the unprocessed vibration
signal, hence are not suitable for gear fault detection.

5. Summary and conclusions

The work presented in this paper was aimed to evaluate the
dependency of distributed faults in gear transmission system on

Fig. 9. Specic lm thickness. Kurtosis values of second IMFs of EMD and EEMD with respect to time.

232

M. Amarnath, I.R.Praveen Krishna / Tribology International 61 (2013) 224234

Fig. 10. Specic lm thickness. Kurtosis values of second IMFs of EMD and EEMD with respect to time.

Torque -360 Nm

Initial micro pitting

after 20 hours

Healthy gear

Increase in pit
size
(after 36 hours)

Macro pitting
(atfer 72 hours)

Abrasive wear (after

108 hours)

Torque -413 Nm

Spalling (after 162

hours)

Progressive pitting on
Tooth (after 144 hours)

Scuffing (after 198 hours)

Increase in pit size

(after 216 hours)

Fig. 11. Surface wear growth on gear teeth.

Table A1
Statistical parameters of raw vibration signalsaccelerated test 1.

Table A2
Statistical parameters of raw vibration signalsaccelerated test 2.

Operating time

Krurtosis

Sk

CF

rms

IF

Operating time

Krurtosis

Sk

CF

rms

IF

0h
27 h
54 h
81 h
108 h

2.1832
1.649
2.863
2.831
3.051

 0.0148
 0.0338
 0.6594
0.0083
0.0118

3.8378
4.0839
4.881
5.214
5.460

5.3320
7.1113
8.3059
10.130
10.827

4.897
5.297
6.109
6.447
7.025

0h
27 h
54 h
81 h
108 h

3.432
3.609
2.863
3.616
4.173

0.0431
 0.0110
 0.0036
0.0092
 0.0712

5.627
6.005
6.518
6.910
8.332

11.535
11.971
13.049
15.018
15.879

8.101
8.417
9.0134
10.385
12.111

specic lm thickness and kurtosis parameter extracted from

vibration signals, EMD and EEMD based methods.
The following conclusions were drawn from the experimental
observations.

1. Initially, kurtosis values of vibration signals have been extracted

to obtain gear fault severity information. But kurtosis values of

vibration signals fail to show the rapid and uniform increasing

trend along with propagating faults.
2. EMD and EEMD based methods have been used to extract
kurtosis values from the vibration signals. Specic lubricant
lm thickness which is an alternative method to predict gear
failure is also used in conjunction with vibration signal
analysis to reveal teeth surface wear severity.

M. Amarnath, I.R.Praveen Krishna / Tribology International 61 (2013) 224234

3. Kurtosis values of second intrinsic mode c2 of EMD and EEMD

based methods reveal reliable diagnostic information of surface wear propagation on gear teeth.
4. Second intrinsic mode c2 of EEMD method provides comparatively much higher kurtosis values than EMD method, hence
these values are considered as better ones in assessment of
distributed faults in gear transmission system.

Table A3
Crest factor values of Intrinsic Mode Function (IMF1IMF6) obtained from
Empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) for accelerated test 1.
Operating time

IMF1

IMF2

IMF3

IMF4

IMF5

IMF6

0h
27 h
54 h
81 h
108 h

5.4014
4.7347
3.1505
3.7014
6.008

4.5646
5.1498
4.2593
4.5268
6.986

7.2741
5.1802
3.3108
3.8368
8.0934

4.393
4.0268
3.0625
5.3914
8.083

10.914
4.0082
8.6864
5.3461
3.074

4.3482
5.3293
14.042
6.6802
9.117

233

Specic lubricant lm thickness, EMD and EEMD based vibration signal analysis improve the diagnostic capability of a gear
wear monitoring system thereby minimizing possibilities of
unexpected shut downs or interruptions in the operations.

Table A4
Crest factor values of Intrinsic Mode Function (IMF1IMF6) obtained from
Empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) for accelerated test 2.

Appendix A
Operating time

IMF1

IMF2

IMF3

IMF4

IMF5

IMF6

0h
27 h
54 h
81 h
108 h

7.3477
4.9959
3.4739
5.1221
8.4491

6.9964
4.7309
4.1194
4.9616
5.0619

9.4767
5.2971
3.4858
4.7792
8.5217

3.7877
3.8669
4.2619
4.4927
6.0175

5.0765
6.5209
5.6955
9.8614
8.232

10.877
7.7792
12.861
14.784
11.789

See Appendix Tables A1A10.

The oil lm thickness hmin and specic lm thickness l can be
calculated as shown in Eqs (A1) and (A2) [2,4,7,8].
hmin

IMF2

IMF3

IMF4

IMF5

IMF6

0h
27 h
54 h
81 h
108 h

0.00268
0.00418
0.00640
0.01287
0.0193

0.00480
0.00316
0.00425
0.00985
0.00823

0.00428
0.00347
0.00498
0.00855
0.002118

0.0038
0.00230
0.00572
0.00603
0.008213

0.00084
0.00122
0.00772
0.00309
0.00109

0.00416
0.00938
0.00596
0.01957
0.02910

A1

Table A9
RMS values of Intrinsic Mode Function (IMF1IMF6) obtained from Empirical
mode decomposition ( EEMD) for accelerated test 1.

Table A5
Impulse factor values of Intrinsic Mode Function (IMF1 IMF6) obtained from
Empirical mode decomposition ( EEMD) for accelerated test 1.
Operating time IMF1

1:6a0:6 Zo u0:7 E0 0:03 r0:44

w0:13

Table A6
Impulse factor values of Intrinsic Mode Function (IMF1 IMF6) obtained from
Empirical mode decomposition ( EEMD) for accelerated test 2.

Operating time

IMF1

IMF2

IMF3

IMF4

IMF5

IMF6

0h
27 h
54 h
81 h
108 h

3.1537
8.1227
7.7553
21.659
18.145

2.5712
3.3324
5.1595
7.6470
8.6219

3.1472
2.5049
7.2591
10.526
10.114

4.6312
3.5316
6.6724
6.5016
4.932

2.2374
2.3591
2.7007
4.6255
6.044

1.5179
0.9435
2.2526
1.8994
5.107

Table A10
RMS values of Intrinsic Mode Function (IMF1IMF6) obtained from Empirical
mode decomposition ( EEMD) for accelerated test 2.

Operating time

IMF1

IMF2

IMF3

IMF4

IMF5

IMF6

Operating time

IMF1

IMF2

IMF3

IMF4

IMF5

IMF6

0h
27 h
54 h
81 h
108 h

0.03375
0.01413
0.01480
0.011824
0.0803

0.03876
0.00794
0.01131
0.01027
0.04975

0.00479
0.00775
0.00816
0.01517
0.07765

0.00497
0.00977
0.00645
0.01181
0.03234

0.00532
0.00403
0.00424
0.00871
0.00679

0.00898
0.00365
0.00559
0.00740
0.00134

0h
27 h
54 h
81 h
108 h

17.659
11.562
13.459
9.4555
11.4555

10.1161
11.076
12.05
12.482
14.102

8.9532
5.9959
9.5925
13.004
14.659

8.9583
10.352
6.2084
10.77
9.871

2.6864
2.5359
3.0493
3.6216
7.864

4.982
1.9264
1.7807
2.0525
4.5761

Table A7
Skewness values of Intrinsic Mode Function (IMF1IMF6) obtained from Empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) for accelerated test 1.
Operating time

IMF1

IMF2

IMF3

IMF4

IMF5

IMF6

0h
27 h
54 h
81 h
108 h

0.00703
0.02572
 0.00267
 0.03445
0.02341

 0.00358
 0.00901
 0.05372
0.01914
0.02210

0.12661
0.00351
0.01224
 0.03371
 0.01993

0.01939
 0.00197
 0.00248
0.00909
0.002901

 0.14689
 0.02036
0.17803
0.052948
0.0310

 0.21985
 0.01055
 0.54519
0.03676
0.02290

Table A8
Skewness values of Intrinsic Mode Function (IMF1IMF6) obtained from Empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) for accelerated test 2.
Operating time

IMF1

IMF2

IMF3

IMF4

IMF5

IMF6

0h
27 h
54 h
81 h
108 h

0.08538
0.0.04490
0.01825
0.00011
 0.03804

0.09924
0.02667
 0.02214
0.00831
0.04427

 0.02324
0.06681
 0.04136
 0.00083
0.01834

0.00937
0.00689
 0.02988
0.01758
 0.00335

0.01314
0.02631
 0.06038
 0.01490
0.11665

0.02455
0.02187
 0.46761
0.02455
0.88647

234

M. Amarnath, I.R.Praveen Krishna / Tribology International 61 (2013) 224234

hmin
R

A2

The criterion for possible scoring damage can be explained

under three conditions. If the specic lm thickness which is
calculated as the ratio of combined roughness to lubricant lm
thickness using Eq. (A2) as l Z3, it indicates that the gear is
operational under ideal full lm or elastohydrodynamic (EHD)
lubrication. If specic lm thickness is 1.4o l o3, it indicates
mixed wear lubrication and some wear is predicted. l o1.4 shows
that the gear is operating under boundary lubrication and severe
wear can be predicted in this regime.
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