Damage Detection of a Gear with Initial Pitting Using the Zoomed Phase Map of Continuous Wavelet Transform

Impulsive vibration generated by localized gear damage can be used as an indicator for damage detection. Local damage induces an abrupt increase of the amplitude and phase lag of the impulsive vibration signal measured on the gearbox. Relatively large damage like “tip breakage” can be easily detected by the amplitude map of CWT (continuous wavelet transform) for the impulsive vibration signal measured on the gearbox. However, minor damage like “initial pitting” cannot be detected with the amplitude map. To overcome this problem, in this paper we take into account the phase map for a damage signal. The zoomed phase map of CWT is successfully applied to the detection of minor gearbox damage.