Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 29 (2012) 377390

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Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ymssp

An integrated electro-mechanical model of motor-gear

unitsApplications to tooth fault detection by
electric measurements
N. Feki a, G. Clerc b, Ph. Velex a,n
a
b

Universite de Lyon, INSA Lyon, LaMCoS, UMR CNRS 5259, B

atiment Jean dAlembert, 20, Avenue Albert Einstein, 69621 Villeurbanne Cedex, France
Universite de Lyon, Universite Lyon 1, Ampe re, UMR CNRS 5005, B
atiment Omega, 43 Boulevard du 11 Novembre 1918, 69622 Villeurbanne Cedex, France

a r t i c l e i n f o

abstract

Article history:
Received 28 March 2011
Received in revised form
17 June 2011
Accepted 11 October 2011
Available online 29 October 2011

Fault diagnosis in geared transmissions is traditionally based on vibration monitoring

but, in a number of cases, sensor implementation and signal transfer from rotary to
stationary parts can cause problems. This paper presents an original integrated electromechanical model aimed at testing the possibility and the interest of tooth fault
detection based on electric measurements on the motor stator. The motor is simulated
using Krons transformation while the mechanical transmission is accounted for by
a lumped parameter model. Tooth defects are assimilated to distributions of initial
separations between the mating anks whose positions and shapes are controlled.
A unique non-linear parametrically excited differential system is obtained, which
provides direct access to both the electrical and mechanical variables. A number of
results are presented, which illustrate the possibility of tooth fault detection by stator
current measurements with regard to the position and dimensions of the defect.
& 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Gear fault
Pitting
Electric motor
Vibration monitoring
Simulation

1. Introduction
Electro-mechanical systems such as geared transmissions driven by induction machines are widely used in a number of
industrial applications because of their power-to-weight ratio, reduced cost and high reliability. However, because of the
critical role of the gearbox, gear failures can reduce efciency and even lead to production breakdown. Consequently, the
early detection of tooth failures is crucial in order to optimize maintenance and reduce the nancial impact of tooth
damage. In this context, gear fault diagnosis has traditionally been based on vibration analysis [1,2], which, however, can
present several drawbacks: (a) vibration signals can be affected by noise possibly associated with external perturbations,
(b) measurements are sensitive to the sensor positions, and (c) in some applications, technical difculties may arise due to
the implementation of sensors on rotary parts and/or in difcult environments (high temperatures, limited space or access
for instance). Although vibration monitoring is still widely used, recent research on gear fault detection has been directed
towards non-intrusive techniques such as Motor Current Signal Analysis (MCSA), which appear as interesting and simple
detection alternatives for electro-mechanical system monitoring. A typical example of the application of MCSA on
induction machines is the detection of bearing failures (local defects and rotor eccentricity), based on the interpretation of
the current characteristic frequencies [3]. In the continuation of this approach, some recent research has tackled gear
motor couplings and the inuence of tooth defects on the electric signals in motors [4,5]. Using a simplied electromechanical model, the authors proved analytically and experimentally that MCSA can be sufciently precise to provide

Corresponding author.
E-mail address: Philippe.Velex@insa-lyon.fr (Ph. Velex).

0888-3270/$ - see front matter & 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ymssp.2011.10.014

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N. Feki et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 29 (2012) 377390

relevant information on gearbox failures. The same method has been successfully applied to the detection of gear faults on
mechanical transmissions driven by permanent magnet brushless dc (BLDC) motors [6].
In this paper, a new analytical formulation is presented, which makes it possible to simulate an electro-mechanical
system comprising an induction motor, a spur or helical gear, shafts, and bearings. The asynchronous motor is accounted
for using a so-called dq model obtained by a classic change of variables, known as Krons Transformation [7], which leads
to an equivalent two-phase machine from the initial three-phase motor. The pinion and the gear are assimilated to two
rigid cylinders connected by a series of time-varying, non-linear springs representing the mesh stiffness function [8]. Gear
tooth faults such as pitting can be simulated anywhere on the active tooth anks via some suitable localized distributions
of normal deviations with respect to errorless tooth anks [810]. Finally, the shafts are simulated by classic two-node
elements and the bearings are represented by additional lumped stiffness elements. It is demonstrated that the global
dynamic electro-mechanical model can be described by a unique non-linear rst order differential system in which the
state vector contains both the electrical (current and magnetic ux) and the mechanical unknowns. This system is solved
iteratively by combining a time-step integration method and a unilateral normal contact algorithm, which veries that the
contact conditions on tooth anks are satised [8,11]. Finally, a parameter analysis is presented, which illustrates the
feasibility and the interest of tooth fault detection based on the analysis of electric signals.

2. Electrical part: Krons model

The three phase asynchronous bipolar machine represented in Fig. 1 comprises (i) a xed armature (stator) with the
three phase windings of magnetic axes as, bs, and cs and (ii) a rotating part (rotor), i.e., a squirrel cage made of aluminum or
copper bars short circuited at their ends by rings, which are modeled by ctitious three phase windings whose magnetic
axes are ar, br, and cr.
In order to simplify the theoretical developments, several hypotheses are introduced [12]: (i) saturation is neglected so
that direct and mutual inductances are independent of the currents in the various coils, (ii) hysteresis and the eddy
currents in the magnetic parts can be discarded since the magnetic circuit is supposed to be perfectly laminated, and (iii)
the magnetomotive force (mmf) varies as a sinusoidal function along the uniform air gap of the motor so that the stator
and rotor self-inductances can be considered as constant and the mutual inductances can be described by sinusoidal
functions of the angles between their magnetic axes. Based on these hypotheses, the equations describing the electric and
magnetic behavior of an induction machine can be derived for both transient and permanent regimes. Following [1214],
these equations are written in the stator and rotor three phase abc frames by considering the six windings represented in
Fig. 1. The equations that relate the uxes and currents depend on the angular position between the axes of the windings,
thus making the mutual inductances characterizing the winding interactions difcult to express. In order to minimize the
number of equations and to make the magnetic equations independent of these angular variables, an equivalent twophased machine is dened using an orthonormal transformation (a projection and a rotation) known as Krons
Transformation [7]. It consists in introducing a change of variable for currents, voltages, and uxes based on the angles
between the coil axes (abc frame) and those of the orthonormal dq0 frame. This change of variable can be interpreted as
the substitution of the real coils by some ctitious ones whose magnetic axes are xed to axes d, q, and 0 but whose

bs
d

Vq
s

Vd
s

br

s
Vb

Vq

sl

Vd
r

s
ar

Vb
r

ar

as
Vas

Vcr

Vc

cs

cr
Fig. 1. Various magnetic axes of the asynchronous machine.

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379

conductors remain attached to the supporting frame. The change of basis, between the dq0 and abc frames is dened as



 3
2
cos y 23p
cos y 23p
r cos y



7
26
6 sin y sin y 23p
sin y 23p 7
1
Tdq0=abc
5
34 1
p
p1
p1
2

Depending on the practical situation [12], the selected frame dq0 can be (a) a xed frame linked to the stator in order to
study strong variations in the rotational speed associated or not with variations in electric supply frequency, (b) a rotating
frame linked to the rotor to analyze transients for which the rotational speed can be considered as constant, for instance,
the analysis of the stresses induced by a short-circuit or to study the transient behavior of a synchronous machine, and
nally (c) a synchronous frame (rotating synchronously with the stator magnetic eld) to study the response of the
induction motor to small perturbations in the vicinity of a given state or to achieve the vector control of AC machines. The
latter has been chosen because of its capacity to eliminate the sinusoidal carrier in current, voltage, and ux signals when
the electric supply frequency is constant. The zero sequence components denoted 0 are not used since they are null when
the stator supply is balanced and the rotor has no dissymmetry [12].
The electric and magnetic equations for the stator and the rotor are rewritten in the dq orthonormal synchronous frame
leading to a state space representation of the form [14]:
d
Xt AXt BUt
2
dt
n
oT
where Xt ids iqs Cdr Cqr
is the state vector whose coordinates are the stator currents and rotor uxes and
n
oT
represents a stator voltage supply vector (subscripts s,r refer to stator and rotor variables respectively):
Ut vds vqs

2 
3
1s 1
1s 1
2 1
3
 T1s s T1r 1ss
os
s
s
Lm T r
Lm om
0
6
7
sLs


6
7
6
7
1s 1
6
7
1 7
 1ss L1m om
os
 T1s s T1r 1ss
6 0
L
L
6
s Lm T r 7
sLs 7, T s s and T r r
A6
7B 6
6
7
7
6
Rs
Rr
Lm
1
0
0
4
5
0

o
6
7
sl
Tr
Tr
4
5
0
0
Lm
0
o
1
Tr

sl

Tr

Rs: resistance of one phase of the stator.

Rr: resistance of one phase of the rotor.
Ls: Stator synchronous inductance.
Lr: Rotor synchronous inductance.
Lm: Magnetizing (synchronous) inductance.
os: Synchronous speed.
osl os  om : where om is the (electrical) angular rotor speed.
The electromagnetic torque equation is developed from the electric power supplied to the rotor in the dq0 frame. In
relation to the different electrical and magnetic parameters, the electromagnetic torque of the multi-polar induction motor
is obtained independently of the angle dening the dq frame as
C em

pLm
Cdr iqs Cqr ids
Lr

where p is the number of pole-pairs.

3. Mechanical part: gear model
The model, described in Fig. 2a is composed of ve basic elements: (a) the input and output shafts simulated by twonode classic elements (Timoshenko beam element for bending), (b) a specic pinion-gear element [8], (c) bearings
introduced as additional lumped stiffness elements, (d) a motor applying the electromagnetic torque described in (3) to
one node of the pinion shaft (input), and (e) a load machine that, for the sake of simplicity, is assimilated to a torsional
stiffness element placed at one node of the gear shaft (output). The system dynamic behavior is therefore accounted for by
36 degrees-of-freedom (DOFs), which correspond to the innitesimal generalized elastic displacements superimposed on
rigid-body motions. The pinion-gear pair DOFs are shown in Fig. 2b.
Following [8] and [9], the pinion and the gear are assimilated to rigid cylinders connected to exible shafts. Mesh
elasticity is simulated by a distribution of independent stiffness elements along the theoretical lines of contact in the base
plane (Wrinckler foundation) as illustrated in Fig. 2c. Each stiffness element is time-dependent as the relative positions of
the meshing teeth vary during the pinion-gear rotation. The results of Weber and Banascheck [15] for tooth bending and

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N. Feki et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 29 (2012) 377390

Motor

C em

w2

I
4

5
Base plane

u2

k
2

Load

v2

w5

pinion

v5
5

u5

gear
Theoretical line of contact

V = Rb1 1

e(Mij)
e(M *)

Real contact area

Fig. 2. 3D dynamic gear model: (a) global model; (b) pinion and gear degrees of freedom; (c) mesh stiffness modeling in the base plane.

base displacements have been employed while contact deections have been introduced via Lundbergs formula for semiinnite half-spaces [16].
The equations of motion point to a non-linear parametrically excited differential system of the form [8,17]:
MY CY_ Kt,YY F0 t Fe1 t,Y Fe2 t

with
Y fv1 ,w1 ,u1 , f1 , c1 , y1 ,v2 ,w2 ,u2 , f2 , c2 , y2 ,v3 ,w3 ,u3 , f3 , c3 , y3 ,
v4 ,w4 ,u4 , f4 , c4 , y4 ,v5 ,w5 ,u5 , f5 , c5 , y5 ,v6 ,w6 ,u6 , f6 , c6 , y6 gT : DOFs vector
M,C,K(t,Y): total mass, damping and time-dependent non-linear stiffness matrix, respectively.
F0(t): nominal torque vector.
Fe1(t,Y): additional excitation vector generated by tooth shape deviations (including pits or spalls).
Fe2(t): additional inertial vector caused unsteady rotational speeds.
Centrifugal and gyroscopic effects being neglected, the total mass matrix is classic whereas the damping matrix is
considered constant and determined using a unique modal damping factor of 0.1 for the modes with maximum strain
energy in the gear mesh [11]. The time-dependent possibly non-linear global stiffness matrix comprises the constant
stiffness elements associated with the shaft-bearing assembly and more specically the contributions of mesh elasticity,
which are detailed below. Following Velex and Maatar [8], the non-linear gear stiffness matrix can be expressed in terms of
a structural vector V(Mij) as
X
kM ij deMij VM ij VM ij T
5
Kt,q
i,j
and the forcing term generated by tooth shape deviations and errors (including tooth spalls) reads:
X
kM ij deM ij VM ij
Fe1 t,q
i, j

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381

with:
k(Mij): elemental stiffness at cell ij: segment j of contact line i (Fig. 2c).
V(Mij): structural vector associated with point Mi j [8].
n
oT
q v2 w2 u2 f2 c2 y2 v5 w5 u5 f5 c5 y5 , pinion and gear DOFs.

de(Mij)e(Mij)  e(Mn), (Fig. 2c), which represents the equivalent normal deviation at point Mi j with respect to ideal
anks and accounts for geometrical errors and deviations possibly produced by tooth ank modications, pits,
spalls, etc.
The instantaneous contact line positions are determined at every time step and the actual stiffness and shape/error
distributions are updated [8]. Following [18] and [19], local faults such as tooth pits or spalls are assimilated to distributions of
shape errors in the base plane in both the contact line direction (face width) and the prole direction (Fig. 3). The resulting tooth
error functions are dened with respect to the base plane and are expressed as functions of the axial coordinate and the time
variable in order to simulate the extent of the defect in the prole direction. In this paper, the shapes of the defects are
assimilated to holes of constant widths and extents along the prole whereas their depths are approximated using Beziers
functions (in order to avoid discontinuities at the passage of the tooth fault) as illustrated in Fig. 3.
The shape deviations associated with spalls are approximated as e(Mij) PijBe(t), where Pij is a windowing function,
which is equal to 1 within the fault area on the base plane and which is zero outside the defect. Be(t) is a Bezier function,
which represents the depth evolutions and which is aimed at simulating the passage of the fault in the contact zone; it can
also be viewed as a function of the coordinate along the tooth prole since time and rotational angles are linked by the
piniongear meshing.

Be (t)
a
c

V = Rb1 1
V

ij = 1

ij = 0


X

Contact
line

Base plane

Fig. 3. Defect form and dimensions. Simulations of the passage in the mesh.

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4. Coupling the electrical and mechanical models

The objective is to obtain a unique differential system combining the electrical and mechanical state variables as
opposed to the usual approaches relying on separate models with external coupling. The advantage of this integrated
approach is that no iterative matching process is needed between the electrical and mechanical solutions and consequently
direct convergence for all the DOFs can be obtained regardless of their nature (currents, ux, displacements, and velocities).
The principle consists in expressing the electromagnetic torque in terms of the currents and uxes from (3) and then
substituting it in the equations of the mechanical system (4). Introducing the following extended state variable vector
_
Zt Xt,Yt, Yt

the coupled system leads to a rst order differential system of the form:
_ At,ZtZt Bt
Zt

which, when developed, reads

with
fv1   

   y6 g fv1 ,w1 ,u1 , f1 , c1 , y1 ,v2 ,w2 ,u2 , f2 , c2 , y2 ,v3 ,w3 ,u3 , f3 , c3 , y3 ,

v4 ,w4 ,u4 , f4 , c4 , y4 ,v5 ,w5 ,u5 , f5 , c5 , y5 ,v6 ,w6 ,u6 , f6 , c6 , y6 gT



1
1 1s
a11 a22 

Tss Tr s
a12 a34 1
a13 a24

1s 1
s Lm T r

a32 a41 0
a14 a23

1s 1
s Lm

a21 a43 1
a31 a42

Lm
Tr

a33 a44 

1
Tr

The differential system (8) is solved by combining an implicit Newmarks time-step integration scheme and a unilateral
contact algorithm, which, at every time-step, veries that the contact compatibility conditions are satised (compressive
contact forces, no penetration of the parts outside the contact zone) [8,17]. The mesh deection for any actual point of
contact must be positive and reads

DMij VMij T q deMij

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383

For negative deections, the associated mesh stiffness elements k(Mi j) are set to zero and the corresponding points Mi j
are excluded from the contact lines.
From a qualitative point if view, a tooth fault will manifest itself as an additional forcing term (impulsive or not) in B(t)
(modications of M  1{Fe1 Fe2} in (8)) affecting all the components of the state vector Z(t) via matrix A(t,Z(t)), which
connects the mechanical, electrical and magnetic variables. With the proposed model, analytical inputoutput relationships can hardly be found but it can be inferred that the variations induced by a defect (and consequently the detection
sensitivity) depend on the intensity of the coupling terms in the state matrix and on the amplitudes of the associated
forcing terms.
5. Results
5.1. Inuence of a tooth defect on the electric signals in the synchronous reference frame
The following results have been obtained for an electromechanical system comprising a three-phase asynchronous
motor (15 kW, 60 Hz, 460 star-connected, 4-poles, and 1775 rpm) and a single stage gear whose characteristics are
detailed in Tables 1 and 2. One single spall has been simulated, which is located near the pitch line over the entire face
width and covers approximately one-third of the tooth height. Its dimensions are given in Fig. 3 and the maximum depth c
has been varied between 10 and 50 mm. In order to emphasize the contributions of tooth damage on electric signals, the
motor and the gearbox are rigidly connected since the same shaft element is used for the rotor and the input shaft of the
transmission.
Fig. 4 illustrates the resulting mesh stiffness evolutions versus time for several depths of defect (the other defect
dimensions being kept constant) obtained by adding, at every time-step, all the active stiffness elements along the contact
lines obtained after simultaneously solving the equations of motion and the normal contact conditions. It can be observed
in Fig. 4 that when the defect comes into mesh, the contact between the teeth can be partly lost leading to a local reduction
in mesh stiffness. For the deepest spall (50 mm), the instantaneous mesh stiffness drops to zero, indicating a total contact
loss when the defect (on tooth #12) comes into the meshing zone. This particular behavior is mostly controlled by the
dynamic mesh deection to the fault depth ratio; if the elastic displacements are larger than the initial separations (depths
of defect), contacts occur within the defective area whereas for smaller deections, the spall bottom is unloaded. It can
therefore be inferred that depending on the fault depth, rather contrasted dynamic responses are to be expected ranging
from very limited perturbations for shallow pits to contact losses and shocks when a signicant part of the tooth is
damaged.
Fig. 5 shows the corresponding load distributions on the defective tooth for several spall depths. For the healthy gear
(Fig. 5a), a smooth variation typical of helical gears is found with a maximal force per unit of contact length of 205 N/mm
when a single tooth pair is in mesh. The introduction of spalls of various depths (Fig. 5b and c) leads to an oscillatory tooth
loading in the prole direction and to higher and more localized maximum force amplitudes. The tooth load amplications
brought by such surface damage can extend the present spall or generate other defects such as cracks or even tooth
breakage if the material strength limits are exceeded.
Fig. 6 shows the stator current time-evolutions on the magnetic d-axis in the presence of a 20 mm depth spall on one
pinion tooth. It can be observed that the tooth failure produces a response peak at every pinion revolution. The periodic
recurrence of the defect peaks with period Z1tm is clearly visible in this signal (Z1 is the number of pinion teeth and tm is the
mesh period). The magnied views in Fig. 7 show the stator current time-evolutions on the magnetic d-axis for several
Table 1
Electrical parameters of the asynchronous motor.
Rs (O)

0,2761

Ls (H)
Rr (O)
Lr (H)
Lm (H)

0,002191
0,1645
0,002191
0.07614

Table 2
Gear data.
Pinion
Module (mm)
Tooth number
Face width (mm)
Pressure angle (deg.)
Helix angle (deg.)

Gear
4

21

31
10
20
20

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N. Feki et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 29 (2012) 377390

Fig. 4. Effect of the damage depth on the global mesh stiffness (mesh stiffness versus the normalized time with tm, the mesh period): (a) no defect;
(b) 20 mm deep defect and (c) 50mm deep defect.

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385

Fig. 5. Instantaneous tooth load distributions: (a) no defect; (b) 10mm deep defect and (c) 20mm deep defect.

spall depths. They indicate that a deeper defect amplies the peak amplitudes but does not change the frequency contents
in the response since the periodicity is conserved.
5.2. Detection sensitivity
In order to appraise the fault detection sensitivity, the simulations have been extended to several tooth defects of
various extents and depths at different positions on the tooth ank. The detection indicator (DI) is dened as the
normalized peak-to-peak amplitude of the response in Krons system. The rst set of results deals with a defect of constant
dimensions, which has been located at different positions across the tooth ank. The resulting DI level curves are shown in
Fig. 8 versus the defect position on the face width and tooth height. It can be observed that the detection sensitivity is
maximal when the fault is situated on a part of the tooth ank surface (the white band in the gure) that corresponds to
the single tooth pair contact area. Detection seems considerably more difcult when the damaged surface lies in the

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Fig. 6. Stator current signal on the d-axis of the synchronous reference frame.

Fig. 7. Zoom of the stator current signal on the d-axis of the synchronous reference frame for different deep defects.

double tooth pair contact area, suggesting that its inuence on the system dynamics is partly masked by the other faultless
tooth contact. From a practical viewpoint, this privileged detection area corresponds also to the part of the tooth ank
where loading is maximal and surface failures are likely to appear.
In the second phase, the position of the defect is kept constant with its center located in the maximum sensitivity area
as dened in Fig. 8 (coordinates: 0.5, 0.42) while its dimensions are varied (a representing the length in the prole
direction, b the width, and c the maximum depth). The results are synthesized in the contour plots in Fig. 9 (one contour
plot per fault depth). Generally speaking, it can be observed that the detection sensitivity increases with a larger and/or
deeper defect. However, it is noticed that a fault covering the entire face width does not correspond to the maximum
sensitivity of detection since a defect over 80% of the face width appears as more visible regardless of the depth of defect.
5.3. Detection based on stator actual currents
By applying the inverse Krons transformation to the stator current signal in Fig. 6, the evolutions of stator phase 1
current (for permanent regimes only) are deduced in Fig. 10. It can be noticed that the presence of the defect is hardly

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387

Fig. 8. Fault detection map.

Fig. 9. Inuence of the defect size on the detection sensitivity.

visible on the stator phase 1 current time signal as opposed to what is found on the d-axis. This observation emphasizes
the interest of Krons transformation in the context of fault detection as it eliminates the electric supply frequency from
the current signatures of induction machines. Although no obvious modications can be found in the time signals, the
spectral contents are modied in the high and low frequency domains as illustrated in Fig. 11, which shows the spectra of
the stator phase current signals obtained in the case of (i) a faultless gear and (ii) a gear with a pit on one tooth ank
(Fig. 10).
The spectra of stator phase 1 current in Fig. 11 have been derived using Blackman windowing and a logarithm scale to
emphasize the contributions of small amplitude perturbations such as those expected for tooth spalls. For perfect gears,
the spectrum exhibits peaks at the current frequency (fs 60 Hz) along with those associated with the mesh frequency
fmesh 621.66 Hz and its harmonics modulated by fs, i.e. fGmesh 9fs 7n fmesh9 with n 1, 2, 3,y : 561.66 Hz, 681.66 Hz,
1183.3 Hz and 1303.3 Hz for instance (Fig. 11). The current spectrum for a faulty gear comprises the frequencies
mentioned above plus the additional peaks corresponding to the pinion rotation fr 29.603 Hz and its multiples modulated
by the current frequency fs. For example, the zoomed view reveals two rays at 176.82 Hz (9fs 8fr9) and 178.41 Hz

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N. Feki et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 29 (2012) 377390

Fig. 10. Stator phase 1 current signal.

Fig. 11. Stator phase 1 current spectra (with and without a gear defect).

(9fs 4fr9) around 177.62 Hz, which corresponds to 6 times the pinion rotational frequency. More generally, frequency
combinations of the form fGr 9fs 7mfr9 and fGrmesh 9fs 7mfr 7nfmesh9 with m,n1, 2, 3,y can be identied, which are
similar to the combinations analytically predicted [4] in the decomposition of the actual current signal into monocomponent phase modulated signals.
Fig. 12 shows the continuous wavelet transform coefcients of the stator phase 1 current signal calculated using the
Morlet wavelet in which the scale values represent the extent to which the mother wavelet is compressed or stretched.
Low scale values compress the wavelet and correlate better with high frequencies whereas high scale values stretch the
wavelet and correlate better with the low frequency contents of the signal. By comparing the faultless gear wavelet map
(Fig. 12a) and that with a pit (Fig. 12b), the presence of the pinion localized fault is clearly identied in both the high and
low scales (high and low frequency domains). Several peaks and stains emerge when the defective tooth comes into mesh
and it is veried that the time interval between two peaks or stains corresponds to the period of rotation of the driving
gear with the tooth fault. The Morlet wavelet transform appears therefore as more sensitive than the fast Fourier transform
because no zoom view is needed to show the contributions of a localized defect on one tooth.

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389

Fig. 12. Morlet wavelet of the stator phase 1 current signal: (a) without defect and (b) with a 20 mm deep defect.

6. Conclusion
An original coupled electro-mechanical model of motor/gear units has been set up, which makes it possible to simulate
the dynamic interactions between the mechanical vibrations generated by gears with or without tooth damage and the
electric currents on driving machines. The methodology relies on an integrated approach, which leads to a unique set of
state equations representative of the micromacro, electro-mechanical interactions. Based on the simulation results, it has
been shown that the presence of tooth defects has a limited inuence on the current time-variations in the motor.
However, distant detection by stator current monitoring seems feasible with the advantage of an easier implementation
than in-situ vibration measurements (particularly when sensors are xed to rotary parts). The proposed model can also be
useful for extensive sensitivity analyses and for testing a variety of monitoring techniques. Finally, as an example of
application, it has been shown that tooth surface failures are more easily detected when located in the single tooth pair
contact area.
In contrast to the system considered in this paper, motors and gearboxes are usually connected by exible couplings in
order to accept a certain amount of misalignment and position errors. The present mechanical model can conceptually
simulate such a situation but further developments are needed in order to rene the motor modeling and be able to
simultaneously take into account rotor speed uctuations, eccentricity and air gap variations.
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[3] M. Blodt,
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