Research on vibration response of a multi-faulted rotor system using LMD-based time-frequency representation

Unbalance, fatigue crack and rotor-stator rub are the three common and important faults in a rotor-bearing system. They are originally interconnected each other, and their vibration behaviors do often show strong nonlinear and transient characteristic, especially when more than one of them coexist in the system. This article is aimed to study the vibration response of the rotor system in presence of multiple rotor faults such as unbalance, crack, and rotor-stator rub, using local mean decomposition-based time-frequency representation. Equations of motion of the multi-faulted Jeffcott rotor, including unbalance, crack, and rub, are presented. By solving the motion equations, steady-state vibration response is obtained in presence of multiple rotor faults. As a comparison, Hilbert-Huang transformation, based on empirical mode decomposition, is also applied to analyze the multi-faults data. By the study some diagnostic recommendations are derived.