Sparse decomposition method based on time-frequency spectrum segmentation for fault signals in rotating machinery

The impulse signal in large rotating machinery with damage fault is sparse, weak, coupled, and even nonperiodic in intermittent operation. To extract this complex signal is a key topic in machinery fault diagnosis. Sparse decomposition (SD) has excellent adaptability in describing arbitrary complex signals based on over-complete dictionary. However, the pursuit speed of best atom is a serious drawback. To alleviate this, a method of sparse decomposition based on time-frequency spectrum segmentation (SD-TFSS) is introduced. Generalized S transform (GST) provides the capability to show the distribution of vibration signals, but the resolution is susceptible to noise, multiresolution generalized S-transform (MGST) is developed to generate multiresolution time-frequency spectrums. Then, spectrums fusion with an appropriate threshold is adopted to acquire multiresolution binary spectrums and produce an optimal binary spectrum. From this optimal binary spectrum, all the connectivity areas are extracted and marked by spectrum segmentation. Thus, an optimal library can be constructed by selecting the optimal atoms of every connectivity area, and the signal can be expressed with this library. We conduct simulations and experiments demonstrating that the proposed method performs well with lower pursuit complexity, higher decomposition efficiency, and better approximation precision.