Evaluation of Ultrasonic Stress Wave Transmission in Cylindrical Roller Bearings for Acoustic Emission Condition Monitoring

Journal article (2022)

Authors

B. Scheeren Ship Hydromechanics and Structures - Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering
M.L. Kaminski Ship Hydromechanics and Structures - Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering
Lotfollah Pahlavan Ship Hydromechanics and Structures - Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering
Research Group
Ship Hydromechanics and Structures (Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering) (TU Delft)
Copyright: © 2022 B. Scheeren, M.L. Kaminski, Lotfollah Pahlavan
DOI
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https://doi.org/10.3390/s22041500
Structural health monitoring Acoustic emission Low-speed roller bearings Elastic stress waves
More Info
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Published Date

2022

Language

English

Faculty

Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering

Department

Marine and Transport Technology

Research Group

Ship Hydromechanics and Structures

Abstract

In the condition monitoring of bearings using acoustic emission (AE), the restriction to solely instrument one of the two rings is generally considered a limitation for detecting signals originating from defects on the opposing non-instrumented ring or its interface with the rollers due to the signal energy loss. This paper presents an approach to evaluate transmission in low-speed roller bearings for application in passive ultrasound monitoring. An analytical framework to describe the propagation and transmission of ultrasonic waves through the geometry and interfaces of a bearing is presented. This framework has been used to evaluate the transmission of simulated damage signals in an experiment with a static bearing. The results suggest that low- to mid-frequency signals (<200 kHz), when passing through the rollers and their interfaces from one raceway to the other, can retain enough energy to be potentially detected. An average transmission loss in the range of 10–15 dB per interface was experimentally observed.