A review on empirical mode decomposition in fault diagnosis of rotating machinery

Rotating machinery covers a broad range of mechanical equipment and plays a significant role in industrial applications. It generally operates under tough working environment and is therefore subject to faults, which could be detected and diagnosed by using signal processing techniques. Empirical mode decomposition (EMD) is one of the most powerful signal processing techniques and has been extensively studied and widely applied in fault diagnosis of rotating machinery. Numerous publications on the use of EMD for fault diagnosis have appeared in academic journals, conference proceedings and technical reports. This paper attempts to survey and summarize the recent research and development of EMD in fault diagnosis of rotating machinery, providing comprehensive references for researchers concerning with this topic and helping them identify further research topics. First, the EMD method is briefly introduced, the usefulness of the method is illustrated and the problems and the corresponding solutions are listed. Then, recent applications of EMD to fault diagnosis of rotating machinery are summarized in terms of the key components, such as rolling element bearings, gears and rotors. Finally, the outstanding open problems of EMD in fault diagnosis are discussed and potential future research directions are identified. It is expected that this review will serve as an introduction of EMD for those new to the concepts, as well as a summary of the current frontiers of its applications to fault diagnosis for experienced researchers.