A Review of Phase Space Topology Methods for Vibration-Based Fault Diagnostics in Nonlinear Systems

Background In general, diagnostics can be defined as the procedure of mapping the information obtained in the measurement space to the presence and magnitude of faults in the fault space. These measurements, and especially their nonlinear features, have the potential to be exploited to detect changes in dynamics due to the faults. Purpose We have been developing some interesting techniques for fault diagnostics with gratifying results. Methods These techniques are fundamentally based on extracting appropriate features of nonlinear dynamical behavior of dynamic systems. In particular, this paper provides an overview of a technique we have developed called Phase Space Topology (PST), which has so far displayed remarkable effectiveness in unearthing faults in machinery. Applications to bearing, gear and crack diagnostics are briefly discussed.