Stochastic Resonance in Second-Order Underdamped System With Exponential Bistable Potential for Bearing Fault Diagnosis

Stochastic resonance (SR) as effective approach for weak signal detection has been widely used in bearing fault signal diagnosis. In this paper, a new method was proposed to detect fault signals, which consists of an exponential bistable potential model generalized by using a harmonic Potential (HP) model, a Gaussian potential (GP) model and second-order underdamped system. As the classical bistable SR (CBSR) has the disadvantage of output saturation, which will suppress the optimal signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the system, therefore, underdamped SR with exponential potential (UESR) and underdamped SR with classical bistable potential (UCSR) are applied to detect fault signal, respectively. Under the adiabatic condition, the analytical expression of the SNR is calculated for the UESR system driven by Gaussian white noise and periodic signal. Then, the effects of system parameters and the damping factor on analytical expression of SNR as a function of noise intensity for different parameters are studied, respectively. Finally, the proposed method is applied to detect simulated fault signals and actual bearing fault signals. The experimental results show that the proposed UESR method is superior to the UCSR method in fault signal diagnosis, such as larger output SNR and higher spectrum peaks at fault characteristic frequencies.