Abstract
In line with the advances in factory automation, various pieces of equipment are now operated in batch processes controlled by computers. However, many kinds of faults can occur in complicated and large systems, which can result in low productivity and economic loss. The reliability and safety of systems have been studied because of the difficulty of determining the severity and location of faults. Therefore, it is necessary to detect and diagnose such faults in order to guarantee the reliability and safety of the equipment. In this paper, a diagnosis method for the ball bearings of a hydraulic pump is applied using a vibration signal for the maintenance of injection molding equipment. The bearings' defects are selected as a main failure mode through a failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA). Usually, there are nonlinear and impulse components of vibration in a ball bearing with faults. For the effective fault diagnosis of a ball bearing, nonlinear diagnostic methods and time-frequency analysis are applied, in addition to the methods currently used, such as power spectrum, time series analysis, and statistical methods. As a result of this study, a failure diagnosis system is provided that is useful even for non-experts. This is a condition-based method that makes it possible to resolve problems in a timely and economical way, in contrast to the prior method, which required regular but wasteful maintenance based on the experience of expensive external experts.
