Vibration condition monitoring of planetary gearbox under varying external load

Abstract The paper shows that for condition monitoring of planetary gearboxes it is important to identify the external varying load condition. In the paper, systematic consideration has been taken of the influence of many factors on the vibration signals generated by a system in which a planetary gearbox is included. These considerations give the basis for vibration signal interpretation, development of the means of condition monitoring, and for the scenario of the degradation of the planetary gearbox. Real measured vibration signals obtained in the industrial environment are processed. The signals are recorded during normal operation of the diagnosed objects, namely planetary gearboxes, which are a part of the driving system used in a bucket wheel excavator, used in lignite mines. It is found that a planetary gearbox in bad condition is more susceptible to load than a gearbox in good condition. The estimated load time traces obtained by a demodulation process of the vibration acceleration signal for a planetary gearbox in good and bad conditions are given. It has been found that the most important factor of the proper planetary gearbox condition is connected with perturbation of arm rotation, where an arm rotation gives rise to a specific vibration signal whose properties are depicted by a short-time Fourier transform (STFT) and Wigner-Ville distribution presented as a time–frequency map. The paper gives evidence that there are two dominant low-frequency causes that influence vibration signal modulation, i.e. the varying load, which comes from the nature of the bucket wheel digging process, and the arm/carrier rotation. These two causes determine the condition of the planetary gearboxes considered. Typical local faults such as cracking or breakage of a gear tooth, or local faults in rolling element bearings, have not been found in the cases considered. In real practice, local faults of planetary gearboxes have not occurred, but heavy destruction of planetary gearboxes have been noticed, which are caused by a prolonged run of a planetary gearbox at the condition of the arm run perturbation. It may be stated that the paper gives a new approach to the condition monitoring of planetary gearboxes. It has been shown that only a root cause analysis based on factors having an influence on the vibration solves the problem of planetary gearbox condition monitoring.