Fault Detection of Planetary Gearboxes using a Wireless MEMS Sensor and New Diagnostic Parameters

Condition monitoring of planetary gearbox using a conventional accelerometer is often difficult as the meshing between the gears change with the carrier. Hence the accurate diagnosis of this type of gearbox-condition is quite challenging. The ground-breaking developments of low-cost and low-power Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) make it possible for MEMS accelerometer to be easily mounted on the rotating shaft directly, providing more accurate dynamic information of rotating machines. This paper focuses on installing two tiny MEMS accelerometers on the input shaft of a planetary gearbox diametrically opposite to each other for measuring the acceleration. After that, two feature parameters are identified based on the time domain and frequency domain analysis of the acceleration signals obtained from the on-rotor accelerometers. The analysis results show that the proposed method can identify the simulated faults effectively which in terms highlight its economic and reliable fault diagnosis approach towards the condition monitoring of planetary gearbox.