Application of EEMD and improved frequency band entropy in bearing fault feature extraction

Ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) is widely used in condition monitoring of modern machine for its unique advantages. However, when the signal-to-noise ratio is low, the de-noising function of it is often not ideal. Thus, a new fault feature extraction method for rolling bearing combining EEMD and improved frequency band entropy (IFBE) is proposed, i.e., EEMD-IFBE. According to the problem of multiple intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) generated by EEMD, how to select the sensitive IMF(s) that can better reflect fault characteristics, a novel method based on FBE for sensitive IMF is proposed. In addition, since the bandwidth parameter is set empirically when the band-pass filter is designed based on the original FBE, a novel bandwidth parameter optimization method based on the principle of maximum envelope kurtosis is proposed. First, the original vibration signal is subjected to EEMD to obtain a series of IMFs; Then, the FBE values are obtained for the original signal and each IMF component, and the bandwidth of the band-pass filter (empirically) is designed as the characteristic frequency band at the minimum entropy value, and the affiliation between the characteristic frequency band of each IMF and the characteristic frequency band of the original signal is compared, and then selecting the sensitive IMF(s) that reflects the characteristics of the fault; Third, due to the influence of background noise, it is difficult to accurately obtain the fault frequency from the selected IMF(s). Therefore, the band-pass filter designed based on FBE is used, and the bandwidth parameter is optimized based on the principle of envelope kurtosis maximum, and then the selected sensitive IMF is band-pass filtered. Finally, the envelope power spectrum analysis is performed on the filtered signal to extract the fault characteristic frequency, and then the fault diagnosis of the bearing is realized. The method is successfully applied to simulated data and actual data of rolling bearing, which can accurately diagnose fault characteristics of bearing and prove the effectiveness and advantages of the method.