2008 IEEE Region 10 Colloquium and the Third ICIIS, Kharagpur, INDIA December 8-10.

PAPER IDENTIFICATION NUMBER: 409

Fault diagnosis of rolling element bearing using

time-domain features and neural networks
B. Sreejith, A.K. Verma and A. Srividya
Interdisciplinary Programme in Reliability Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai - 400 076, India,
Email:sreejithb1@iitb.ac.in, akv@ee.iitb.ac.in, asvidya@ee.iitb.ac.in,

Abstract Rolling element bearings are critical mechanical

components in rotating machinery. Fault detection and diagnosis
in the early stages of damage is necessary to prevent their
malfunctioning and failure during operation. Vibration
monitoring is the most widely used and cost-effective monitoring
technique to detect, locate and distinguish faults in rolling
element bearings. This paper presents an algorithm using feed
forward neural network for automated diagnosis of localized
faults in rolling element bearings. Normal negative log-likelihood
value and kurtosis value extracted from time-domain vibration
signals are used as input features for the neural network. Trained
neural networks are able to classify different states of the bearing
with 100% accuracy. The proposed procedure requires only a
few input features, resulting in simple preprocessing and faster
training. Effectiveness of the proposed method is illustrated using
the bearing vibration data obtained experimentally.
Keywords-bearing vibration; time
likelihood value; automated diagnosis

I.

domain

feature;

log-

INTRODUCTION

Rolling element bearings are responsible for most of the

failures in rotating machinery. Vibration analysis has been used
extensively for condition monitoring of bearings. The vibration
signal contains huge information, which can be applied for
condition monitoring without interfering with machinery
operation. When a localized fault in a bearing surface strikes
another surface, impact vibrations are generated. Condition
monitoring is performed by analyzing the changes in the
vibration signature due to the presence of these impulses. Fault
diagnosis helps to identify the location of the fault so that
corrective action can be taken and maintenance can be planned
accordingly.
Analysis techniques applied for processing the raw
measured vibration signals for condition monitoring of rolling
element bearings can be classified as: time-domain, frequency
domain and time-frequency or time-scale analysis methods.
The most popular method is the frequency domain analysis
which needs the assistance of an expert to interpret the results.
Techniques such as averaging [1], adaptive noise cancellation
[2], bispectrum analysis [3] and high frequency resonance
technique (HFRT) [4] have been used to improve the signal to
noise ratio to make the spectrum analysis more effective.
Frequency domain analysis methods tend to average transient

vibrations and hence, become more sensitive to background

noise. Reliability of condition monitoring can be increased by
automating the process, which also provides savings in time
and cost. Moreover, automatic fault diagnosis does not depend
on subjective human judgment [5]. The application of ANNs
has been gaining importance in the area of automated fault
detection and diagnosis of rotating machinery [6], [7], [8]. The
neural networks have the advantages of adaptive learning,
nonlinear generalization, fault tolerance, resistance to noisy
data, and parallel computation abilities. Techniques based on
time domain analysis [9], [10], frequency domain analysis [11],
[12] and time-frequency/scale analysis [12], [13] have been
used to extract input features for rolling element bearing fault
diagnosis using neural networks. A method for automatic fault
diagnosis of rolling element bearings is presented in this paper.
In the proposed method, time domain features are extracted
from the vibration signal and pattern recognition using ANN is
used for bearing fault diagnosis. Normal negative loglikelihood value and kurtosis value of the time-domain signals
are used as input features. Vibration signals measured from a
single location are used in the proposed method. Some of the
previous works dealt with signals from multiple locations for
fault detection [10], [14]. The number of input parameters used
in the proposed algorithm is less compared to that of previous
works [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13] and hence, training
speed is high. Moreover, additional signal processing required
for frequency domain analysis and time-frequency/scale
analysis is not required for the proposed algorithm. The
performance of the negative log-likelihood values are
compared with other time-domain features and it has been
observed that they perform better when used as input features
of ANN for the fault diagnosis of bearings. Different
algorithms used for the training of ANN are compared and it is
observed that Levenberg-Marquardt (LM) algorithm converges
faster than other algorithms in this context.
II.

FEATURE EXTRAVTION

Feature selection has a significant impact on the success of

pattern recognition. Following time domain statistical
parameters are usually used to detect incipient bearing damage:
Peak value, Pv =(1/2)[max(xi) - min(xi)]

(1)

IEEE Kharagpur Section & IEEE Sri Lanka Section

978-1-4244-2806-9/08/$25.00 2008 IEEE

2008 IEEE Region 10 Colloquium and the Third ICIIS, Kharagpur, INDIA December 8-10.
PAPER IDENTIFICATION NUMBER: 409
where xi, (i = 1, ...,N) is the amplitude at sampling point i and N
is the number of sampling points.
RMS value, RMS =

Standard deviation, SD =

1 N
(x i )2
N i=1

(2)

1 N
(x i - x) 2

N i=1

(3)

1 N
xi - x
N i=1
Kurtosis value, Kv =
4
( RMS value )

(4)

Crest factor, Crf = Peak value / RMS value

Clearance factor, Clf =

Impulse factor, Imf =

Shape factor, Shf =

(5)

peak value
1 N

N xi
i=1

(6)

Peak value
1 N
xi
N i=1

(7)

RMS value
1 N
xi
N i=1

(8)

Weibull negative log-likelihood value was used recently for

feature extraction from vibration signals [14]. The Weibull
negative log-likelihood value (Wnl) and the normal negative
log-likelihood value (Nnl) of the time domain vibration signals
are used as input features along with the other features defined
above in this study. The negative log-likelihood function is
defined as
N

- = - log f ( x i ;1 , 2 )

(9)

i=1

where f (xi; 1, 2) is the probability density function (pdf). For

Weibull negative log-likelihood function and normal negative
log-likelihood function, the pdfs are computed as follows
Weibull pdf, f(xi;,) = -|xi|-1exp[-(|xi|/)]
where and
respectively.

are the shape and the scale parameters

Normal pdf, f(xi;,) =

where and
respectively.

(10)

1
exp
2

-(x i -) 2

2 2

(11)

are the mean and the standard deviation

III.

FAULT DIAGNOSIS USING NEURAL NETWORKS

An ANN is composed of nodes arranged in input, hidden

and output layers, with all the nodes in each layer having
weighted inter-connections with all the nodes in the succeeding
layer. Nodes in the hidden and output layers consist of artificial
processing units called neurons. After training, neural network
can recognize various conditions or states of a complex system.
The number of nodes in the input layer is equal to the number
of input features. Feed-forward neural network with back
propagation training algorithms are used in the study. In the
context of classification problems, networks with two layers of
weights and sigmoid activation function for neurons in the
hidden layer can approximate any decision boundary to
arbitrary accuracy [15]. Hence, architecture with single hidden
layer is selected. The number of neurons in the hidden layer is
decided using a trial and error method. Starting from two, the
number of neurons is increased by one in each trial until the
required accuracy is achieved with quick convergence. Since
there are four classes to discriminate, four neurons are used in
the output layer, where each output represents a condition of
the bearing.
The input features are normalized in the range of -1.0 and
1.0 for negative log-likelihood values, and in the range of 0.0 to
1.0 for other features. Log sigmoid and tan sigmoid activation
functions are used for neurons in the hidden layer and the
output layer, respectively. The weights and biases of the
network are initially selected randomly. The stopping criteria
used for training process is the achievement of one of the
conditions namely mean square error of 10-10, gradient of 10-10
or 100 epochs. The network is trained using different back
propagation algorithms and it is observed that LM algorithm
converges quickly. Hence, this algorithm is used for training.
Sensitivity analysis is performed to understand the effect of
each input feature on the ANN output. Irrelevant input features
identified using this analysis can be removed, which in turn
reduce the size of the network, the complexity and the training
time. Moreover, the inclusion of irrelevant input variables can
reduce the accuracy of forecast through added noise or
systematic bias. Sensitivity based pruning method [16] is used
to evaluate the effect of removing an input variable from the
fully connected network. A sensitivity measure of feature i, Si
is calculated by assessing the change in training error when the
input feature i is replaced with the mean value of that feature.
After the network is trained, the sensitivity measure for each
input feature can be calculated as
Si = MSE ( xi ) MSE (x)

(12)

where MSE (x) is the mean square error (MSE) of the ANN
and MSE ( xi ) is the MSE after replacing the input feature i
with its average value.
IV.

EXPERIMENT DATA

Vibration signals provided by the CWRU bearing data

center [17], collected from a 2 HP motor fixed in a test stand is
used for investigations in this paper. The motor is connected to

978-1-4244-2806-9/08/$25.00 2008 IEEE

2008 IEEE Region 10 Colloquium and the Third ICIIS, Kharagpur, INDIA December 8-10.
PAPER IDENTIFICATION NUMBER: 409
a dynamometer and torque sensor by a self-aligning coupling.
The bearing at the drive end of the motor supporting the motor
shaft is tested at a load of 1 HP. Load is applied using
dynamometer. Speed and horsepower data are collected using
transducer/encoder. Single point faults are introduced into the
test bearings using electron-discharge machining with a fault
diameter of 0.18 mm and a depth of 0.28 mm. Vibration data is
acquired using accelerometers, which are attached to the
housing with magnetic bases. Digital data is sampled at 12,000
samples per second and recorded using a 16 channel DAT
recorder. The speed of the shaft is measured as 1772 rpm. SKF
6205 series deep groove ball bearings are used for the analysis.
The specifications of the bearing are: ball diameter = 7.94 mm;
pitch diameter = 39.04 mm; number of balls = 9; and contact
angle = 0.
The time domain vibration signals considered for the
analysis are collected for four different conditions of the
bearing: (i) normal, (ii) rolling element fault, (iii) outer race
fault, and (iv) inner race fault. The vibration signature for a
normal bearing is shown in Fig.1a. Vibration fault signals for
bearings with faults located in rolling element, outer race and
inner race are shown in Figs. 1b, 1c and 1d, respectively.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

V.

The vibration data for each condition with 120000 samples

is used in the study for fault diagnosis. The signals are split into
20 non-overlapping segments each. The length of the segments
is chosen carefully to contain enough information to capture

localized features of the signal such that the computation time

is minimum. The data segments are preprocessed to extract the
features. Hence, 20 sets of 10 normalized features are obtained
for each of the four conditions of the bearing, out of which 12
sets selected in random are used to train the network and the
remaining 8 sets are used for testing. During training, the first,
second, third and fourth outputs are set to denote the normal,
defective rolling element, defective outer race and defective
inner race conditions, respectively of the bearing.
The features extracted from the vibration signals are shown
graphically in Fig. 2. The separations between normal and
defective cases are maximum in the plots of Wnl and Nnl. The
plots of Pv, RMS value and SD show a narrow separation
between normal and rolling element defective cases. In the
plots of the other five normalized features, there is no
separation between normal and rolling element defective cases.
Separation between normal and defective inner race is
maximum for the plot of Kv.
Initially, all the 10 time domain features explained above
are used to train the neural network. Using the trial and error
method, the optimum number of hidden nodes is obtained as
11. The network is able to detect the normal and three defective
states of the bearing with 100% success during training and
testing. Fig. 3 shows the sensitivity diagram of each output
about the mean square. From the sensitivity diagram, it can be
observed that Nnl is the feature with the most significant
contribution towards output nodes 1 and 2. Similarly, Kv is a
significant feature for nodes 3 and 4.
1

0.25

0.15

0.05

Amplitude

Amplitude

0.5

0.05

0.5
0.15

0.25
0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

1
0

0.5

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.3

0.4

0.5

Time (s)

Time (Second)

(a)

(b)
3

2
4

Amplitude

Amplitude

1
4

8
0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

3
0

0.1

Time, (s)

(c)

0.2

0.5

Time, (s)

(d)

Figure 1. Vibration signal of the bearing a) normal, b) rolling element fault, c) outer race fault, d) inner race fault.

978-1-4244-2806-9/08/$25.00 2008 IEEE

2008 IEEE Region 10 Colloquium and the Third ICIIS, Kharagpur, INDIA December 8-10.
PAPER IDENTIFICATION NUMBER: 409

0.5

SD

RMS

Pv

0.5

Clf

Crf

Kv

0
1

Nnl

0.5

Wnl

Imf

Shf

1
1
0

0.5

10

20

10

Signal Segment
normal

0
0

10

20

Signal Segment
defective outer race

20

Signal Segment

defective inner race

defective rolling elment

Figure 2. Time-domain features of vibration signals.

0.25

0.14
1. Pv
2. RMS
3. SD
4. Kv
5. Crf
6. Clf
7. Imf
8. Shf
9. Wnl
10.Nnl

0.05

Sensitivity

Sensitivity

0.10

1. Pv
2. RMS
3. SD
4. Kv
5. Crf
6. Clf
7. Imf
8. Shf
9. Wnl
10.Nnl

0.2

0.15

0.1

0.05

10

Feature

(a)

10

0.025

0.0003

0.0002

0.0001

1. Pv
2. RMS
3. SD
4. Kv
5. Crf
6. Clf
7. Imf
8. Shf
9. Wnl
10.Nnl

0.02

Sensitivity

1. Pv
2. RMS
3. SD
4. Kv
5. Crf
6. Clf
7. Imf
8. Shf
9. Wnl
10.Nnl

0.0004

Sensitivity

(b)

0.0005

Feature

0.015

0.01

0.005

10

Feature

(c)

10

Feature

(d)

Figure 3. Sensitivity diagram of the outputs of ANN a) node 1, b) node 2, c) node 3, d) node 4.

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2008 IEEE Region 10 Colloquium and the Third ICIIS, Kharagpur, INDIA December 8-10.
PAPER IDENTIFICATION NUMBER: 409
The procedure is repeated by removing the eight less
significant input features and reducing the size of the network.
This will result in the reduction of complexity and training
time. Nnl and Kv are used as input features. The optimum
number of neurons in the hidden layer is obtained as 14. Fig. 4
and 5 shows the learning curve and sensitivity diagram of the
network respectively. Fig. 6 shows the target and actual values
of output nodes. It can be observed that the network performs
fault diagnosis with the same accuracy of 100% even after
pruning 8 input channels.

0.4

Mean Square Error

0.35
0.3
0.25
0.2
0.15
0.1
0.05
0
0

10

12

14

epochs

Performances of various time-domain features are studied

for comparison. The effect of input features on the training
speed of neural network is shown in Table I. It can be observed
that the number of epoches required for training is minimum
for the network with Nnl and Kv as input features. Since only
two input features are used in this case, the number of neurons
in the hidden layer is also less. Hence, complexity and training
time are less for this network.

Figure 4. Learning curve of the ANN with Kv and Nnl as input.

0.5

Sensitivity

Kv
Nnl

An optimization study has been carried out to find the best

ANN training algorithm in this context. LM, resilient
propagation (RP) [18], scaled conjugate gradient (SCG) [19]
and Powell-Beale conjugate gradient (PBCG) [20] are the
training algorithms considered for the study. Table II shows the

0.3

Output

Figure 5. Sensitivity diagram of the ANN with Kv and Nnl as input features.

Targets/net outputs

Targets/net outputs

output
target

0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2

output
target

0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0

0
0.2
0

20

40

60

0.2
0

80

10

20

30

(a)

50

60

70

80

(b)

training

testing

training

testing

output
target

0.8

Targets/net outputs

Targets/net outputs

40

Data Sequence Number

Data Sequence Number

0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0.2
0

testing

training

testing

training
1

output
target

0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Data Sequence Number

70

80

0.2
0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Data Sequence Number

(c)

(d)

Figure 6. Target and actual output values of ANN with Kv and Nnl as input features a) node 1, b) node 2, c) node 3, d) node 4.

978-1-4244-2806-9/08/$25.00 2008 IEEE

2008 IEEE Region 10 Colloquium and the Third ICIIS, Kharagpur, INDIA December 8-10.
PAPER IDENTIFICATION NUMBER: 409
[3]
TABLE I.

EFFECT OF INPUT FEATURES ON FAULT DIAGNOSIS

Input features
Pv,RMS,SD,Kv,Crf
Clf,Imf,Shf,Wnl,Nnl
Kv, Nnl
Pv, RMS, SD, Kv,
Crf, Clf, Imf, Shf
RMS, SD
TABLE II.

No. of neurons
in hidden layer

Average no.
of epochs

11

20

10

14

23

10

19

Average no. of epochs

14
29
90
28

average number of epochs required for training. The study

reveals that LM algorithm has converged to the optimum
solution more efficiently compared to the other algorithms
under consideration.
VI. CONCLUSIONS
A neural network approach for automated fault diagnosis of
rolling element bearing from vibration data has been introduced
in this paper. The time domain parameters; normal negativeloglikelihood value and kurtosis value, are used as input features.
The proposed procedure uses ANN classifier and requires data
measured from only one measurement point. The signal is not
preprocessed before the feature extraction. The algorithm uses
less number of input features resulting in faster training. The
effectiveness of the algorithm has been illustrated using bearing
vibration data and results showed 100% success rate in the
recognition of different bearing conditions for fault diagnosis.
The results of the study show the potential suitability of the
procedure for automatic fault detection and diagnosis of
complex systems in industry.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank Professor K.A. Loparo of
Case Western Reserve University for providing access to the
bearing vibration dataset.

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]
[16]

[17]
[18]

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Powell-Beale conjugate gradient, PBCG

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