The application of energy operator demodulation approach based on EMD in machinery fault diagnosis

Abstract An energy operator demodulation approach based on EMD (Empirical Mode Decomposition) is proposed to extract the instantaneous frequencies and amplitudes of the multi-component amplitude-modulated and frequency-modulated (AM-FM) signals. Furthermore the proposed approach is applied to machinery fault diagnosis. Firstly, EMD method is used to decompose a multi-component AM-FM signal into a number of intrinsic mode functions (IFMs). Secondly, the energy operator demodulation method is applied to each IMF and the instantaneous amplitudes and frequencies of a multi-component AM-FM signal are extracted. Finally, the spectrum analysis is applied to each instantaneous amplitude in order to obtain envelope spectra from which the mechanical fault can be diagnosed. The analysis results show that the energy operator demodulation approach based on EMD can extract the characteristic of machinery fault vibration signals efficiently.