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Gearbox fault diagnosis using RMS based

probability density function and entropy
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Article in Structural Health Monitoring · December 2016

DOI: 10.1177/1475921716679802

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Original Article
Structural Health Monitoring
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Gearbox fault diagnosis using RMS Ó The Author(s) 2016

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based probability density function and DOI: 10.1177/1475921716679802
shm.sagepub.com
entropy measures for fluctuating speed
conditions

Vikas Sharma and Anand Parey

Abstract
Fault diagnosis of gearbox which operates on low rotating speed with high fluctuations is highly important because its
ignorance can led to a catastrophe. The uncertainty within the vibration signal of the gearbox can be identified by the
entropy measures, on the basis of probability density function of a signal. But, under fluctuating speeds, entropies may
show insignificant results, hence making them non-reliable. The aim of this article is to develop a reliable and stable tech-
nique for gear fault detection under such fluctuating speeds. Therefore, a root mean square–based probability density
function is proposed to improve the efficiency of entropy measures. The fault detection capabilities of proposed tech-
nique were demonstrated experimentally. Various entropy measures, namely, Shannon entropy, Rényi entropy, approxi-
mate entropy, and sample entropy, were compared as well as evaluated for both Gaussian and proposed probability
density function. The proposed technique was further validated using two condition indicators based on amplitude of
probability density function. Results suggest the effective fault diagnosis using proposed method.

Keywords
Entropy, gear fault, fluctuating speeds, probability density function, condition indicators

Introduction suggests that spectral analysis fails to specify the dete-

Gearbox-based machines like wind turbines and auto-
mobiles sometimes operate at low rotating speeds. Even
at low rotating speeds, gearboxes observe fluctuations.
Therefore, early fault diagnosis and condition monitor-
ing techniques for such gearboxes are very important
because non-monitoring may lead to catastrophe. Most
of the conventional condition monitoring and gear fault
diagnostic techniques work fundamentally under con-
stant speed/load. Deterioration in the condition of gear-
box affects the structural response as reported by
traditional techniques.1 Therefore, any variation in
vibration patterns, that is, modulation of vibration sig-
nal, can indicate changes in gear health. The causes of
modulations are unknown, as vibration patterns are
also affected by fluctuating speed causing ambiguity in
identification of the fault features. Therefore, there is a
need for a reliable fault detection technique which can
highlight the fault features from acquired vibration sig-
nal, irrespective of operating speed conditions. The
issue of fault detection under variable speed conditions
has gained its significance in last decade.2–9 The effect
of varying speed conditions on gear vibration signals
rioration of gears efficiently.2,8,10,11
Methods derived from probability density function
(PDF) for non-stationary signals based on Shannon
entropy,4,12–15 approximate entropy,16–19 sample
entropy,19,20 and Rényi entropy6,21–23 have been devel-
oped for fault diagnosis. The number of components in
gear vibration signals has strong influence on the envel-
ope of PDF.23 It implies that with fluctuating speeds,
PDF changes. On the basis of the amplitude of PDF
under constant speed conditions, Rzeszucinski et al.24
proposed two condition indicators (CIs) for gearbox
health monitoring demonstrating fault advancement;
however, indicators were evaluated using different sig-
nals. Furthermore, Asnaashari and Sinha25 presented a
method based on PDF to analyze vibration response of
Discipline of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology
Indore, Indore, India
Corresponding author:
Vikas Sharma, Discipline of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of
Technology Indore, Indore 452020, India.
Email: phd1301103010@iiti.ac.in
2 Structural Health Monitoring

Figure 1. Vibration response of a gear at constant speed: (a) healthy condition and (b) faulty condition.

structures in time domain for crack detection. All of
these methods have made some achievements in fault
diagnosis. However, they have their own limitations.
This motivates us to look up into a new direction for
gear fault diagnosis using PDF and entropy under
speed fluctuations.
In this article, an approach of modifying PDF using
root mean square (RMS) for gear fault diagnosis has
been proposed. Both, normal distribution, that is,
mean-based PDF (PDFm ), and proposed distribution,
that is, RMS-based PDF (PDFRMS ), for different gear
health signals were plotted, and fault features were
highlighted using entropies. Entropies were evaluated
and compared for different crack levels for both con-
ventional and modified PDFs. A crack was simulated
on pinion tooth root as suggested by Pandya and
Parey.26,27 The experimental setup of Drivetrain
Diagnostics Simulator (DDS) is briefly introduced in
later sections. Thus, the proposed technique will prove
to be responsive and stable enough to sense the modu-
lation caused by hidden fault features under fluctuating
speed circumstances.
Theoretical background of PDF and
entropy for gear vibration signal
Basic principle of PDF
In context of dynamics of the gearbox, the vibrations of
different amplitudes at different time instants are also
generated due to fluctuating speed. Under such condi-
tions, PDF shows the distribution of sinusoidal signals
with random amplitude and phase.28 For gears, time-
dependent deterioration phenomenon is normally dis-
tributed ranging from ‘ to + ‘. Normal distribution
for a signal x(t), with mean (m) and standard deviation
(s) can be mathematically represented as follows
1 ðxmÞ2
p = pffiffiffiffiffiffi e 2s2
2ps
Б
With 0 < p < 1 and ‘ p dx = 1.
Influence of fault and operating condition on PDF of
vibration signal
Gearbox signals are multi-component signals.
According to the equations given by McFadden29 for
constant speed conditions, simulated gear vibration sig-
nals have been developed consisting of periodic transi-
ents along with random noise, as illustrated in
Figure 1. It is well known that signal-to-noise ratio
(SNR) decreases with the presence/increase of/in the
defect.30 So, the SNR of healthy gear is kept 1.2, and
for the case of faulty gear vibration signal, more noise
is added making SNR 0.8 for faulty gear. The healthy
gear vibration signal with random noise is shown in
Figure 1(a), and faulty gear vibration signal with ran-
dom noise is shown in Figure 1(b). From Figure 2, it is
worth noting that the faulty system displays broader
PDF curve with low peak amplitude as compared to
PDF of healthy system. This illustrates the effect of
mechanical faults on the shape of PDF. Also, for gear
faults, Baydar and Ball11 concluded that effects of
faults are more significant than variations in the load-
ing conditions. So, it can be considered that irrespective
of operating conditions, the occurrence of faults intro-
duces significant changes in PDF. These changes can
further be studied for fault detection. A lot of research
work on gear fault diagnosis under fluctuating speed is
available in literature, but theory suggesting the effect
of speed fluctuation on PDF is not yet reported.
Therefore, the effects of fluctuating speed on the PDFs
are explored, and entropies are evaluated in subsequent
sections of article.
CIs based on PDF
Two normal distribution–based CIs proposed by
Rzeszucinski et al.24 used residual signal and compared
it with the existing indicator FM4. FM4 is also a vibra-
tion diagnostic CI. The indicators are mentioned as
ð1Þ follows
APDFRF = 1  max½ p ð2Þ
Sharma and Parey 3

Figure 2. Classic normal PDF curves for healthy and faulty signals at constant speeds.

  !
max phealthy 1 X
a
APDFRB = ð3Þ ERen = log pi , a.0, a 6¼ 1 ð5Þ
max½pactual  1a i

where subscripts RF and RB are reference free and ref-
erence based, respectively.
Entropy-based feature extraction
According to thermodynamics, entropy is a scale to
evaluate disorder within a thermodynamic system.31
But with respect to information theory, entropy is a
measure of uncertainty and can be evaluated using
probability distribution.32 Thus, entropy is an indicator
to evaluate the uncertainty within the time series.
Entropy utilizes the amplitude of power spectrum of
signal to estimate uncertainty of the time series.13 Brief
descriptions of the various entropies are given in the
following sections.
Shannon entropy (ESh). Shannon entropy measures the
uncertainty within the signal in time domain and is
defined as follows12
X
N a signal of length N and reoccurs itself within the toler-
1
ESh = pi log
pi
i=1
wherePpi is the distribution of eachP probability density
with Ni= 1 pi = 1 given by pi = Pf = Pf .
Rényi entropy (ERen). Another entropy measure known
for determining the spectral complexity of a time series
is Rényi’s entropy which can be defined as follows23
Rényi’s entropy corresponding to a = 2 which is
Rényi’s quadratic entropy and can be rewritten as
follows
!
X
ERen =  log p2i ð6Þ
i
In this work, equations (4) and (6) were used to eval-
uate entropies. These entropies were considered as the
measure of uncertainty and complexity about the event
i. Data with broad and flat probability distribution
have high entropy, whereas peak and narrow distribu-
tions will have low entropy.
Approximate entropy (EApp). Approximate entropy is a
complexity measure of the time series. It is used in the
areas of the vibration-based health monitoring.17 It
measures the randomness of a time series in many
dimensions. It expresses the logarithmic likelihood that
ð4Þ ance of r for d points and also repeats itself for the next
d + 1 points. The criterion for choosing of r and d can
be understood from Pincus.18 Considering a time series
x(i) of length N, construct N  d + 1 vectors
X (1), X (2), . . . , X (N  d + 1). Any vector X (i) can be
expressed as follows
X ðiÞ = fxðiÞ, xði + 1Þ, . . . , xði + d  1Þg, 1<i<N  d +1
ð7Þ
4 Structural Health Monitoring

where d is the embedding dimension. For a given time where Ci is the count, such that L½X (i), X (j) < r, exclud-
series x(i), the approximate entropy given by EApp ing self-matches. The parameter L½X (i), X (j) is the dis-
tance between X (i) and X (j) and can be defined as
EApp = [d ðrÞ  [d + 1 ðrÞ ð8Þ follows

where L½X ðiÞ, X ð jÞ = max ðjxði + k  1Þ  xðj + k  1ÞjÞ ð15Þ

1, 2, ..., d
d 1 X  
[ = ln Cid ðrÞ ð9Þ The lower the value of ESam for a given value of d
ð N  d + 1Þ i
and r, the resemblance will be more in a given time
where Cid (r) is the correlation integral indicating the series. For ESam, the values of d and r are same as used
probability of a vector X (i) which remains similar to for the calculation of EApp.
X (j) within tolerance limit r. Cid (r) is given as follows

1 Proposed distribution: RMS-based PDF

Cid ðrÞ = Nr i = 1, 2, . . . , N  d + 1
ðN  d + 1Þ i
where Niris the distance between two vectors X (i) and
X (j), which is smaller than tolerance r. Moreover, regu-
lar signal can be indicated by the low values of EApp. If
the value of the r parameter is small, the conditional
probability estimate will be poor, and the estimate will
also be responsive to noise. Similarly, for a high value
of the r parameter, detail information will be lost. In
this work, the value of the parameter r is chosen 0.2
times the standard deviation of the data, and the
embedded dimension d is set as 2.
Sample entropy (ESam). Sample entropy is a reformed ver-
sion of the EApp and is used for uncertainty measure of
time series.19 It avoids biasing caused using the self-
matches in the computation of EApp and improves per-
formance. Furthermore, ESam is capable of acquiring
long record data length and improves the relative con-
sistency. In addition to this, ESam algorithm is simpler
and quicker than the EApp. Let x(i) be the time series of
length N; construct N  d + 1 vectors X (1),
X (2), . . . , X (N  d + 1) as expressed by equation (5).
For a given time series x(i), ESam can be evaluated as
follows19
 d 
A ðr Þ
ESam =  ln d
B ðr Þ
where parameters Bd (r) and Ad (r) are defined as follows
1 X
N d
B d ðr Þ = C d ðr Þ
ðN  d Þ i = 1 i
ð10Þ
Vibrations in a gear tooth result in the oscillations of
the gear and its associated components like shafts, bear-
ings, and so on, around its mean position. For a signal
with sinusoid behavior, the mean (m) represents the sig-
nal poorly because mean of the instantaneous ampli-
tude remains zero; thus, this parameter cannot be used
to evaluate the severity of the excitation.33 This per-
suades to modify the use of mean in normal PDF for
gear fault diagnosis.
A standard normal PDF function incorporates the
mean value of data which is equal to zero and standard
deviation equal to one. Generally, mean is used to get
the central tendency of a given data set; on the contrary,
RMS is used when random variables given in the data
are negative and positive such as sinusoids. This is the
basic reason for less sensitive normal PDF under fluctu-
ating speeds resulting in unsatisfactory fault detection.
A proof of this is given by the failure of kurtosis under
fluctuating speed conditions,8,34,35 as kurtosis is a deri-
vative of normal PDF.36
Therefore, for a random non-stationary signal, the
mean value can never be zero. Moreover, the signal can
lie in range ½‘, ‘ and follow 0\m, m\0, but m 6¼ 0.
Therefore, substituting RMS for mean m and the
expression for PDFRMS can be rewritten as follows
ð11Þ
1 ðxrmsÞ2
p = pffiffiffiffiffiffi e 2s2 ð16Þ
2ps
Б
With 0 < p < 1 and ‘ pdx = 1.
The following are the reasons for substituting RMS
ð12Þ
over mean (m) value:

1 X
N d
1. RMS is the average of the square of sample/s;
Ad ð r Þ = C d + 1 ðr Þ ð13Þ
ðN  d Þ i = 1 i therefore, it is always positive; on the other hand,
mean remains approximately zero in real-time
and vibration signals.
2. RMS is a continuously varying function under the
1 condition of fluctuating speed; whereas, mean is a
Cid ðrÞ = Ci , i = 1, 2, . . . , N  d ð14Þ
ðN  d Þ static component.33
Sharma and Parey 5

Figure 3. Experimental setup (DDS).

3. RMS is a quadratic mean which belongs to the Table 1. Main parameters of input gear and output gear.
same family of mean, that is, mean, median, and
mode, but for normal distribution, mean, median Parameter Input gear Output gear
and mode become equal, so RMS can be consid-
Type Spur (involute) Spur (involute)
ered instead. No. of teeth 32 80
4. RMS is a homogeneous function having a prop- Pressure angle (°) 20 20
erty, such that RMS of a set of data satisfies Module (mm) 1.5875 1.5875
min(x1 , x2 , . . . , xn ) < rms < max(x1 , x2 , . . . , xn ). Face width (mm) 12.5 12.5
Young’s modulus (MPa) 2 3 105 2 3 105
Contact ratio 2.12 2.12
Experimental evaluation
Experimental setup A uniaxial accelerometer was mounted at the bearing
housing of input shaft of the gearbox. PCB-based inte-
The vibration signals were recorded from the DDS,
grated circuit piezoelectric (ICP)–type accelerometer
which is functionally a motor–drive–brake-type test
(Figure 4, Table 2) was used. The time domain vibra-
setup using a 2.237-kW, three-phase, 0- to 3000-r/min
tion signal waveforms were acquired from gearbox test
AC drive motor with motor controller for variable
rig with a sampling rate of 25 kHz. The signals were
speed operation. Load was applied through magnetic
acquired for healthy, initial crack and advanced crack
brake of capacity upto 80 N m (Figure 3). It also com-
gears.
prises of a single-stage gearbox with a pinion and a
gear. The center distance between gearbox shafts is
8961 mm, which can also be used for other parallel
transmission gears like helical and herringbone. Details
Generation of fatigue crack on pinion tooth
of gears are listed in Table 1. The gearing system was A crack propagation path, as suggested in Pandya and
lubricated by splash lubrication using SAE 80W-90 Parey,26,27 was imitated in the pinion tooth for experi-
provided at bottom of gear housing. mental study using wire electrode discharge machining.
6 Structural Health Monitoring
Figure 4. Arrangement of tachometer and accelerometer.
Table 2. Accelerometer specification.
Model no. Sensitivity, (mV=(m2 =s))
PCB 333B32 (610%)10:2
Two cracks of different lengths were generated on the
pinion (Figure 5).
Fluctuating profiles of speed (input condition)
The speed may fluctuate in many ways; however, some
of the speed fluctuating profiles like quadratic fluctuat-
ing profile of speed,37 random fluctuating profile of
speed,8 and sinusoidal fluctuating profile of speed10,38
were used for the evaluation of proposed method.
These fluctuating speed profiles could be observed in
many industrial applications which are operating at
low speeds such as condition monitoring for the gear-
box inside the agitators, wind turbines, and automo-
biles. The experimental investigations were conducted
at 40% of speed fluctuation from the mean speed to
evaluate the performance of the proposed method.
These different fluctuating speeds were realized using
motor control drive. Fluctuating speed profiles were
input to the setup using application software NVGate.
Quadratic fluctuating speed profile. This speed fluctuation
profile obeys a quadratic expression of speed function
fs (t) = at2 + bt + c, where fs (t) is the function of speed
with respect to time (t), and a, b, c are the three con-
stants. Figure 6 shows the quadratic fluctuating profile
of speed ranging from 1 to 8 Hz.
Random fluctuating speed profile. The random fluctuating
profile of speed obeys random speed variation. Figure 7
Frequency range (Hz) Measuring range, ((m2 =s)pk)
(65%)0:5  3000 6490
shows the random fluctuating profile of speed for dif-
ferent health of gears ranging from 5 to 8 Hz.
Sinusoidal fluctuating speed profile. The sinusoidal fluctu-
ating profile of speed obeys sinusoidal expression. Let
fs (t) = ½ f + b sin (2pft), where fs (t) is the function of
speed with respect to time (t), f is the speed of rotating
shaft, b is the sinusoidal amplitude of speed variation,
and t is the time in seconds. Figure 8 shows the sinusoi-
dal fluctuating profile of speed which ranged between 4
and 6 Hz keeping mean speed as 5 Hz.
Information regarding the growing fault condition
of a gear remains in its vibration signal. So, initially,
this gear vibration signal under different speed condi-
tions was acquired and stored. The next step is the esti-
mation of the PDF of the generated vibration signal.
This PDF is calculated and plotted by both approaches,
that is, PDFm and PDFRMS . Finally, these PDFm and
PDFRMS were used for calculating different entropies.
The concept of entropy serves to characterize the PDFs
into healthy and faulty PDF.
Analysis and discussion
PDFm and PDFRMS for healthy and faulty gears
The fluctuations in the speed can appear in any combi-
nation. However, aforementioned fluctuating profiles
of speed were observed for low-speed rotating
Sharma and Parey
Figure 5. Pinion with various gear tooth health: (a) healthy gear tooth with scale for PCD measurements, (b) initial crack
(length = 1 mm), and (c) advanced crack (length = 3 mm).
Figure 6. Quadratic fluctuating speed profile ranging from
1 to 8 Hz.
Figure 7. Random fluctuating speed profile ranging from
5 to 8 Hz.
machines, and hence, they are used in this study. The
d.c. components were set to zero before processing the
signals for PDF. The PDFs for constant input speed of
5 Hz are exhibited in Figure 9. Figure 9(a) to (c) shows
the vibration signals for the healthy gear, gear with
7
Figure 8. Sinusoidal fluctuating speed profile ranging from 4 to
6 Hz with a mean speed of 5 Hz.
initial crack, and gear with advanced crack, respec-
tively. Figure 9(d) shows PDFm for healthy gear,
whereas Figure 9(g) shows PDFRMS which shows better
distribution of signal. PDF for initial and advanced
cracks is shown in Figure 9(e) and (f), respectively, the
height of PDF was reduced, and the distribution was
widened for PDFm . The similar trend was followed by
PDFRMS (Figure 9(h) and (i)). This clearly implies that
PDFRMS is capable of highlighting faults similar to
PDFm for fluctuating speed conditions. Moreover, for
different fluctuating profiles of speed, the peak appears
at the RMS value of the signal and not at the mean
value, as shown in Figures 10 to 12.
A slight truncation of PDF was observed
(Figure 11(g)), which was due to the vibration signal
data. The range of the amplitude for a healthy pinion
was limited from 4 to 24 mm/s2. With the increase in
8 Structural Health Monitoring

Figure 9. Gearbox vibration signal for constant speed and probability distributions: (a) healthy gear vibration signal, (b) vibration
signal with initial fault, (c) vibration signal with advanced fault, (d) PDFm of healthy gear, (e) PDFm of initial fault gear, (f) PDFm of
advanced fault gear, (g) PDFRMS of healthy gear, (h) PDFRMS of initial fault gear, and (i) PDFRMS of advanced fault gear.

Figure 10. Gearbox vibration signal for quadratic fluctuating speed profile and probability distributions: (a) healthy gear vibration
signal, (b) vibration signal with initial fault, (c) vibration signal with advanced fault, (d) PDFm of healthy gear, (e) PDFm of initial fault
gear, (f) PDFm of advanced fault gear, (g) PDFRMS of healthy gear, (h) PDFRMS of initial fault gear, and (i) PDFRMS of advanced fault gear.

crack level, the amplitude of the vibration signal Table 3. Average time consumed in seconds.
increased which resulted in the widening of PDF and
lowering the height. Method Time consumed (s)
This study concentrates on the use of PDFRMS for
PDFm 0.4142
fluctuating speed conditions. The time of computation PDFRMS 0.6213
was calculated and compared for both PDFm and
PDFRMS and presented in Table 3. It has been found
that the time consumed by PDFRMS is 1.5 times of the
time consumed by PDFm . The diagnosing capability of Performance comparison of entropies
the proposed method is found effective. Hence, the pro- Shannon, Rényi’s, approximate, and sample entropies
posed method can be used for fault diagnosis of gears were calculated for both PDFm and PDFRMS (Table 4).
under fluctuating speeds, considering the time The result obtained after processing the non-stationary
consumed. vibration signals using PDFRMS illustrates increasing
Table 4. Entropy features.

Features m-based PDF RMS-based PDF % increase

Gear health conditions Gear health conditions
No crack Initial crack Advanced crack No crack Initial crack Advanced crack No crack Initial crack Advanced crack
Sharma and Parey

Constant input speed

EntropySh 0.0124 0.0273 0.0324 0.1854 0.2914 0.3628 1395.1613 967.399 1019.75
EntropyRen 24.9375 25.3500 26.5606 24.4871 25.9096 26.7162 -1.8061 2.2075 0.58583
EntropyApp 0.3641 0.3682 0.4158 0.5091 0.6234 0.8914 39.8242 69.3102 114.382
EntropySam 5.1356 5.1961 6.2743 5.5561 5.9641 6.3201 8.187943 14.7803 0.7299
Sinusoidally fluctuating input speed
EntropySh 0.7146 0.4266 0.6516 0.7629 0.8510 0.9924 6.75902 99.4843 52.302
EntropyRen 13.3435 14.2197 16.1531 18.9642 24.6216 26.4281 42.1231 73.1513 63.6101
EntropyApp 1.4761 1.0602 0.2312 1.5312 1.7962 2.0134 3.7328 69.4209 770.848
EntropySam 2.7861 3.3462 4.7014 3.7632 4.0196 5.0142 35.0705 20.1243 6.6533
Quadratically fluctuating input speed
EntropySh 0.0129 0.0152 0.0211 0.1014 0.2096 0.4122 686.0465 1278.95 1853.55
EntropyRen 22.9687 34.0291 35.2955 23.0491 34.9216 36.0416 0.35004 2.6227 2.11387
EntropyApp 0.8412 0.0149 0.0030 0.8417 0.9994 1.1014 0.05943 6607.38 36613.3
EntropySam 5.6258 5.8346 6.4230 5.6267 5.9984 6.5216 0.01599 2.80739 1.5351
Random fluctuating input speed
EntropySh 0.4271 0.0404 0.0198 0.2934 0.4299 0.4851 -31.3041 964.109 2350
EntropyRen 12.7684 13.5202 30.6477 15.9617 18.1613 31.4681 25.009394 34.3272 2.67687
EntropyApp 0.9099 0.0208 0.0129 0.9097 1.2346 1.9762 -0.02198 5835.58 15219.4
EntropySam 3.5117 5.3676 5.8775 2.1919 2.9691 3.0321 19.369 11.2061 2.63037
9
10 Structural Health Monitoring

Figure 11. Gearbox vibration signal for sinusoidal fluctuating speed profile and probability distributions: (a) healthy gear vibration
signal, (b) vibration signal with initial fault, (c) vibration signal with advanced fault, (d) PDFm of healthy gear, (e) PDFm of initial fault
gear, (f) PDFm of advanced fault gear, (g) PDFRMS of healthy gear, (h) PDFRMS of initial fault gear, and (i) PDFRMS of advanced fault gear.

Figure 12. Gearbox vibration signal for random fluctuating speed profile and probability distributions: (a) healthy gear vibration
signal, (b) vibration signal with initial fault, (c) vibration signal with advanced fault, (d) PDFm of healthy gear, (e) PDFm of initial fault
gear, (f) PDFm of advanced fault gear, (g) PDFRMS of healthy gear, (h) PDFRMS of initial fault gear, and (i) PDFRMS of advanced fault gear.

patterns with respect to fault growth for all the entropies
(at constant as well as fluctuating speed). On the other
hand, PDFm exhibited uneven trends; that is, for some
cases, entropy increased, while for others it decreased
(Figure 13), thus making the fault detection non-reli-
able. Figure 13, first column, represents entropy versus
gear health at constant speed. It can be noticed that
approximate entropy fails to show the crack even at the
constant speed. However, for the fluctuating profiles of
speed, Rényi’s and sample entropies increased with an
increase in crack level for PDFm , but Shannon and
approximate entropies failed to response against the
fault. On the contrary, PDFRMS exhibited amplified val-
ues of entropies and effectively sensed fault severity for
all the cases of fluctuating profiles of speed as consid-
ered in this study. Comparative study of the entropies
on the basis of PDFs, that is, PDFm and PDFRMS , shows
that PDFRMS has an enhanced fault identification capa-
bility. It is worth noting that because of PDFRMS , all the
entropies become responsive toward the fault growth.
Sharma and Parey 11

Figure 13. Entropy performances for different PDFs.

Figure 14. Performance of APDFRF under different speed conditions for proposed method over conventional method: (a) for
constant speed, (b) for sinusoidal fluctuation of speed, (c) for quadratic fluctuation of speed, and (d) for random fluctuation of speed.
12 Structural Health Monitoring

Figure 15. Performance of APDFRB under different speed conditions for proposed method over conventional method: (a) for
constant speed, (b) for sinusoidal fluctuation of speed, (c) for quadratic fluctuation of speed, and (d) for random fluctuation of speed.

Validation of proposed method using CIs
Under the fluctuating speed conditions, the fast Fourier
transforms (FFTs) were found smeared. Due to this,
even if the gear crack level advances, the FFT of vibra-
tion signal turns out to be less descriptive. A compari-
son has been drawn for different speed conditions,
using CI suggested by Rzeszucinski et al.24 For both
PDFm and PDFRMS , plots of indicators (APDFRF and
APDFRB) were developed, as shown in Figures 14 and
15, respectively. It was reported by Rzeszucinski et al.24
that both the indicators showed an increasing trend not
only with initial fault but also for advancing fault. Such
behavior was not alike for varying speed conditions.
For sinusoidal and random fluctuating profile of speed,
there was very low rise in the value APDFRF toward ini-
tial crack for PDFm , but later, its value increased rapidly
for advanced crack. This observation clearly indicates
that the APDFRF can be a good CI for advanced crack
but not much significant for initial crack. So, using
APDFRF for early fault may mislead results for PDFm .
Also, for quadratically fluctuating profile of speed,
both CIs failed to respond against growth of the crack
for PDFm . An advantage that can be seen from these
figures is that the sensitivity of both the indicators
remains consistent when using PDFRMS for fluctuating
profiles of speed. From Figures 14 and 15, it can be
inferred that both the indicators work well for constant
speed as well as for fluctuating speeds using proposed
PDFRMS .
Sharma and Parey
Conclusion
In this article, experiments were performed for healthy
gear, gear with initial crack, and gear with advanced
crack for different fluctuating speed profiles. Fault
detection methodology is proposed using PDFRMS and
entropy measurement. Percentage increase in entropy
values for PDFRMS was significant for initial crack as
compared to advanced crack over PDFm . The entropies
were less responsive when calculated by PDFm . On the
contrary, entropies when calculated using PDFRMS were
more responsive toward fault development. This modi-
fication was also validated using two CIs as reported in
the literature, and both the indicators were found to be
consistent and sensitive with the PDFRMS for fluctuating
speeds, which were not working with PDFm . With all
this, Shannon entropy and Rényi’s entropy were found
to be responsive toward fault development and were
found more stable and robust.
This study does not deal with sudden fluctuation in
the motor speed; fault diagnosis of gearbox under such
typical non-stationary conditions is a possible future
scope of this study.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.
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