Detection of Bearing Outer Race Fault in Induction Motors using Motor Current Signature Analysis

Bearing damage is the most common fault type in induction motors. In recent years, bearing fault detection based on motor current signature analysis (MCSA) has been gained extensive attention. However, the changes in the stator current signal which is caused by the bearing fault are usually very weak. In order to detect bearing fault effectively, a method for bearing fault detection based on complete ensemble empirical mode decomposition with adaptive noise (CEEMDAN) analysis of motor current signals is proposed. The CEEMDAN is used to decompose the stator current signal into several independent intrinsic mode functions (IMF), then the most sensitive IMF can be extracted. The experimental results show that the proposed approach is effective for bearing outer race fault detection.