Identification of Vibration Properties of Wheel Loader Driveline Parts as a Base for Adequate Condition Monitoring : Bearings

In order to reduce costly downtime, adequate condition monitoring of the automatic transmission components in heavy duty construction equipment is necessary. The transmission in such equipment enables to change the gear ratio automatically. Further, the bearings in an automatic transmission provide low friction support to its rotating parts and act as an interface separating stationary from rotating components. Wear or other bearing faults may lead to an increase in energy consumption as well as failure of other related components in the automatic transmission, and thus costly downtime. In this study, different sensor data (particularly vibration) was collected on the automatic transmission during controlled test cycles in an automatic transmission test rig to enable adequate condition monitoring. An analysis of the measured vibration data was carried out using signal processing methods. The results indicate that predictive maintenance information related to the automatic transmission bearings may be extracted from vibrations measured on an automatic transmission. This information may be used for early fault detection, thus improving uptime and availability of heavy duty construction equipment