Quantification of Condition Indicator Performance on a Split Torque Gearbox

Eric Bechhoefer, Goodrich SIS, 100 Panton Rd, Vergennes, VT

Eric.Bechhoefer@Goodrich.com
Ruoyu Li and Dr. David He, University of Illinois at Chicago
The Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
davidhe@uic.edu
ABSTRACT
The requirement for higher energy density transmissions (lower weight) in helicopters has lead to the development of the
Split Torque Gearbox (STG) to replace the traditionally planetary gearbox by the drive drain designer. This may pose a
challenge for the current gear analysis methods used in Health and Monitoring Systems (HUMS). Gear analysis uses time
synchronous averages to separates in frequency gears that are physically close to a sensor. The effect of a large number of
synchronous components (gears or bearing) in close proximity may significantly reduce the fault signal (increase signal to
noise) and therefore reduce the effectiveness of current gear analysis algorithms.
In this study, we developed a STG for testing in order to generate a no fault and single gear fault date sets of vibration
data. These vibration signatures are processed through the a number of gear analysis algorithms (see Table 1, 2 and 3) to
quantify performance. The performance metric was separablity. Additionally, advance signal processing techniques where
developed in order to potentially improve separability.

INTRODUCTION
Helicopter performance, economy and development cost
are a function of weight. The split torque gear (STG) box
(ref[1]) is an alternative to traditional planetary gearbox
design. Potentially, the STG saves weight, can be more
reliable, have reduce transmission noise, and improved
efficiency. These benefits have driven the helicopter
manufacturing community to develop products using the
STG. For example, the Comanche helicopter was designed
with a STG, and the new Sikosky CH-53K will incorporate
the STG design to transmit over 18,000 shp to the rotor
blades. It is likely that STG will be incorporated into more
designs in the future (ref [2]).
Because of the limited experience in building helicopter
with STG, there is no condition based monitoring data on
this type of gear box. Studies have been conducted to model
and analyze vibration dynamics of the STG (ref [3]), and
analysis on gear loading has been conducted (ref [4]). Yet,
these studies do not give insight into fault detection of gears
on this type of design. Gear diagnostics use time
synchronous averages to separates in frequency gears that
are physically close. The effect of a large number of
synchronous components (gears or bearing) in close
proximity may significantly reduce the fault signal (increase
signal to noise) and therefore reduce the effectiveness of
current gear analysis algorithms
In order to gain experience in performing HUMS types
of analysis on STG, Goodrich working with the University
Presented at the American Helicopter Society 65th Annual Forum,
Grapevine, Texas, May 27-29, 2009. Copyright 2009 by the
American Helicopter Society International, Inc. All rights reserved.

of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) have build a test gearbox for the

purpose of testing condition indicators (CI) used in HUMS
and condition based maintenance practices. The primary
design considerations where emulation of synchronous gear
signals that would be found in a STG (see figures 1 & 2).

Figure 1 Input Drive Side of STG Test Rig

The input spur gear is a 40-tooth gear, driving three, input
spur idler gears of 72 teeth. The idler shafts drives three, 48tooth output spur idler which drives a single 64-tooth output
spur gear. Accelerometers where mounted on the input
drive pinion and on each output drive idler. The fault was
characterized as removal of 20% of the gear tooth on one of
the output drive idler. The location of each accelerometer

was placed such that: there was optimal fault detection, and
that there would be some potential for sensor fusion (figrue
5).

Ageing induced defects such as pitting, spalling and

increased surface roughness.

Assembly and/or wear resulting in misalignment,

improper backlash or looseness.

Manufacturing error resulting in an eccentric gear or

non-uniform gear tooth spacing.

Mesh impact/soft tooth due to gear tooth chipping,

cracking of the gear tooth base.

Each fault could induce one or more CI to indicate an

anomalous condition. While studies have been conducted to
model gear fault dynamics (ref [5], ref [6]), no one CI is
seen to be sensitive to all gear fault modes. Additionally, it is
unlikely that, in the near future, any CI will denote an
absolute level of damage.

Figure 2 Output Drive Side of the STG Test Rig

The STG test rig is representative of an operational STG
in the generation of synchronous tones test CBM/HUMS
analysis gear analysis algorithm. The cost, size and power
where driving considerations in the design of this STG,
which was ultimately developed by SpecrtaQuest, Inc. A
more representative gearbox design, such at seen in ref [4]
from the Comanche STG is given in figure 3.

Implicit in absolute levels of damage is a probability of gear

continuing to transmit torque over some period of time, e.g.
a CI value of xx indicates that the gear will transmit torque
for 100 hours with a probability of .95. However, both test
stand and real world experience have shown that a number
of CI values change relative to a level of damage. This
suggests that a stochastic or hypothesis testing methodology
can be used to indicate impending gear failure. In fact, most
HUMS use statistical limits (e.g. mean plus 3 standard
deviation, for example) to indicate when maintenance is
appropriate.
Given the literature of gear CI, in this study 20 gear/shaft
based analysis and 38 gear analysis were conducted on
nominal and faulted gear box, and a measure of seperability
(ability to discern a statistically significant change) between
the nominal and faulted gear was measured.
Finally, non-traditional gear analysis was attempted using
advance signal processing techniques. A formal
developmental description and results will be given after the
traditional gear analysis results.
Gear Analysis Description
The 58 gear analysis were all based on processing time
domain vibration data into a synchronous average (SA). SA
is a technique where gear and shaft vibration are resampled
to remove variation is shaft RPM speed. This has two
benefits:

Each bin in the results Fourier transform (FFT)

represents one shaft revolution. All the energy
associated with a shaft order or a gear mesh is then just
the FFT at the appropriate bin index + 1 (bin 1 is the DC
component, and with an AC coupled system, should be
zero. The first harmonic for a 40 tooth gear is bin 41).

Any spurious noise is average. In general, the noise

reduction is 1/sqrt(number of revolutions). Each
revolution is estimated by the product of the time
between tachometer zero crossings (usually rising edge)

Figure 3 Comanche STG Showing Compact Size and

High Gear Reduction Ratio
GEAR ANALYSIS
Gears are complicated dynamic structures with a
number of failure modes. Any CBM/HUMS type of analysis
needs to capture these damage modes to ensure appropriate
maintenance can be conducted prior to failure. For example,
gear damage can be characterized by:

fundamental amplitude. These algorithms can identify

gears by the number of teeth (table 2).

and the shaft ratio from the shaft on which the

tachometer signal is taken.
A number of SA techniques have been developed (ref
[7]). In this study, the optimal interpolation method was
chosen. In this method, a linear-phase FIR filter is
constructed that minimizes the weighted, integrated squared
error between an ideal piecewise linear function and the
magnitude response of the filter over a set of desired
frequency bands. The generalized filter is (eq (1)):

h(t) =

sin(t /T )

(t /T )

cos(Rt /T )

(1 4R t

2 2

/T 2 )

eq (1)

where R is the roll off factor and T is the symbol period.

Essentailly, the filter h(t) interpolates n samples into N
samples, where

N = 2 ceiling(log 2 (n ))

Gear algorithms based on statistics/features of the SA

band passed filtered around the gear tooth mesh rate
(e.g. narrow band signal analysis, table 3).

For a full description of the gear algorithms used see ref[5].

The measure of seperatbility was calculated using the pooled
sample standard deviation. The sample size was 20
acquisitions per sample set, where the populations for the
null set came from the nominal gear (no damage) and the
alternative set came from the damage gear population. The
test statistics is then:

T=

eq(2)

for radix 2 FFTs.

E [Y1] E [Y2 ]
Sp 2

eq(3)

The pseudo code for the SA is:

where
BT: average elapse time between tachometer impulses.
N: number of points in the FFT
Phi0: Initial shaft angle
Phi: shaft angle
Rev: number of revolutions in SA
Rat: shaft ratio relative the tach signal
Zct: zero crossing time
Incr: shaft increment =1/N
Isamp: interpolated sample
Samp: time domain signal
SR: sample rate;
SA: synchronous average
For r = 0 to r < Rev,
Phi0 = Rat + r;
For k = 0; k < N
Phi = (Phi0 + k*Incr)/Rat;
Dt = conv(h(t),zct(t))
Isample = conv(h(t),Samp(Dt*SR))
SA(k) = SA(K) + isamp;
End
End
SA = SA/Rev
The CI are features of the SA. There are typically three
types of CI features that are derived from the SA:

Shaft algorithms which detect fault on any gear

associated with the shaft (e.g. if a gear is attached to
either end of the shaft, it is not possible to identify
which gear is faulted). These typically include statistics
on the SA, or ratio of statistics on the SA (table 1).

Gear algorithms based on the ratio of gear mesh

amplitudes or the ratio of gear mesh amplitude to shaft

Sp =

(n 1)S12 + (n 1)S22
2n 2

eq(4)

A test statistic T greater than 3.58 is considered significant

and would indicate that the CI could detect the fault (ref[8]).
Table 1. Shaft Based Algorithm Results.
Condition Indicator
SO1 Amplitude
SO2 Amplitude
SO3 Amplitude
SA Pk 2 Pk
SA Crest Fact.
SA Skewness
SA Kurtosis
SA RMS
SA Phase Kurtosis
Residual RMS

T
.66
1.14
.84
4.0
2.55
1.4
3.4
3.0
.04
2.8

Condition Indicator
Gear Dist. Fault
Energy Operator CF
EO Pk 2 Pk
EO Skewness
EO Kurtosis
EO RMS
Residual Skewness
Residual Kurtosis
Residual Pk 2 Pk
Residual Crest Fact.

T
2.34
0.04
2.4
0.04
.005
3.5
1.0
0.65
2.75
1.24

The large statistical difference (T of 4) seen in the SA Peak

to Peak suggests that the mesh tones are increased in the
damage gear.
Table 2. Gear Algorithm Based on Mesh Tones.
Condition Indicator
Mesh Rate
Mesh 2nd Harmonic
Mesh 3rd Harmonic
G2 Rate
G2 2nd Harmonic
G2 3rd Harmonic
SA RMS

T
2.6
3.1
0.55
4.3
1.4
1.88
3.0

Condition Indicator
Sideband Mod 1
Sideband Mod 2
Sideband Mod 3
Gear Mesh 1
Gear Mesh 2
Gear Mesh 3

Table 3. Narrow Band Signal Analysis

T
4.3
4.2
2.5
1.44
2.8
3.8

Condition Indicator
Narrow Band 6th M
NB 5th Moment
NB PK 2 PK
NB Kurtosis
NB Skewness
NB CF
NB RMS
FM RMS
FM CF
FM Skewness
FM Kurtosis

T
4.1
1.3
0.1
4.4
0.04
7.1
1.1
0.22
2.8
0.3
1.5

Condition Indicator
Derivative FM RMS
DFM Kurtosis
AM RMS
AM CF
AM Skewness
AM Kurtosis
DAM RMS
DAM CF
DAM Skewness
DAM Kurtosis

T
3.0
1.2
1.12
7.3
0.9
0.6
1.92
0.37
0.38
.19

It would be useful if a beam former could be used as a

spatial filter that linearly combined the output of n
accelerometers so that signals arriving from some particular
directions are amplified, while signals from other directions
are attenuated. Consider a sensor array consisting of two
accelerometers, A and B (see figure 4).

There was a number of gear CIs that would indicate gear

fault.
This should not be considered an easy case to perform
analysis. A number of observations come out of the study.
Data was acquired at a number of torque (e.g. brake) levels.
Essentially, no detection was possible at lower torque
settings. This can be attributed to the nature of the STG,
where the torque paths, and therefore loads, are split.
Additionally, the gears relative to the driving loads, are
large: the drive motor can supply only 3 HP. In other words,
the gearbox was over designed for the loads present. What
this shows is that those algorithms with a T > 3.58 are
remarkable sensitive to gear fault.
ADVANCE SIGNAL PROCESSING TECHNIQUES
Test stands provide good opportunities to test new
algorithms and techniques. Given this, three signal
processing techniques where evaluated as potential new
methodology for gear fault detection. The first technique,
beam forming, would take advantage to n number of sensor
to reject unwanted noise by steering the sensor array
sensitivity to the desired signal source. The second
techniques, linear prediction coding, models the periodic
signals (e.g. shaft and gear mesh tones) and dynamically
predicts the signal d steps in the future, removing them.
This, in theory leaves only fault signatures or random noise.
This technique is called narrowband interference
cancellation.
The third technique, empirical mode
decomposition (EMD) would decompose the vibration
signal into several intrinsic mode functions (IMF) and then
the interested IMF component would be analyzed to reveal
the gear fault.
Beam Former Technology
An accelerometer, hard mounted to the gearbox, will
generally receive a number of undesired signals in addition
to the signal of the component under analysis. These
extraneous signals are of random phase, and tend to increase
the noise of the system, masking signals of interest. This can
be a more serious matter in STG where there are
synchronous signals that differ only in phase and amplitude
when reaching a sensor.

Figure 4 Example: Array of Two Accelerometers

The signal s(n) = A cos(n) and v(n) = B *cos(n),
arriving at angles 0 and , with respect to the line
perpendicular to the line combining A and B, which are the
inputs to the array filter which consists of a phase-shifter and
subtractor. The signal s(n) arrives at elements A and B at
the same time, where the arrival times of signal v(n) at A
and B are different. Thus,

sA (n ) = sB (n) = cos(n )
v B (n ) = cos(n )

eq(5)

v A (n ) = cos(n )
Where A and B are used to denote the signals picked up by
accelerometers A and B, respectively, and phi is the phaseshift arising from the time delay of arrival of v(n) at element
A with respect to its arrival at B.
It is assumed that s(n) is the desired signal and v(n) is an
interference, then by inspection we can find a phase shifter
equal to f with which we can cancel out v(n). The desired
signal reaches the filter output as A cos(n) - cos(n-)),
which is non-zero and still holding the information
contained in a. The algorithm to do this is based on the leastmean-square (LMS) algorithm developed by Widron and
Hoff (see ref [9]).
Using two sensors from the STG, a beam-former to
nulls signals that are not coming perpendicularly into the
sensor was tested. The accelerometers where mounted
parallel to each shaft, such that signatures that arrive off axis
would be from a gear that are not of interest. Theoretically,
this would improve the signal to noise of the gear under
analysis, which has the benefit of increasing the discriminate
capability of the gear algorithms.

Testing of the beam former showed no improvement

gear fault discrimination. This was disappointing and, on
further investigation, not surprising. In RADAR for
example, each antenna element is a dipole, with sensitivity
not a function of arrival angle. This is not the case of shear
style accelerometer, which has sensitivity of, at most, 10o on
axis. Due to the placement of the accelerometers (see figure,
5) there was very little signal interference from the adjacent
gears.

s(n) is the signal of interest

y(n) is the signal associated with gear mesh, shafts,
e.g. interference.
v(n) is random noise.
The interference signal is typically large compared to the
signal of interest. It is necessary to remove the interfering
signal y(n) from x(n) while preserving the signal of interest
s(n). Since the measured signal x(n) and the interference
y(n) are correlated, one can estimate the interference using
an optimal linear estimator:

yh(n ) = c t x(n D )
Rc = d

R = E x(n D )x t ( x D )

d = [x(n D ) y (n )]

eq(6)

where D is the delay operator. If yh(n) = y(n), the output of

the filter is x(n)-yhat(n) = s(n)+v(n). This means we can
completely remove the interference and only the desire
signal and noise remains.
In practice, signal y(n) is not available. One can use a
minimum means square error D-step linear predictor, such
that:
e(n) = x(n) + atx(n-D) and Ra = -r,
where
r = E[x(n-D)x(n)].
Figure 5 Accelerometer Location

For this modeling assumptions to hold true:

Due to this limitation, additional accelerometer mounting

bosses where machined into the gearbox shaft supports. This
will allow future analysis of beam former techniques in the
future.

Narrowband Interferance Canceller

Most gear algorithms used in HUMS are based on
measuring frequencies associated with gear mesh tones. For
example, Mesh Analysis is the ratio of gear mesh harmonics
to the base mesh tone. Similarly, G2 analysis is the ratio of
the signal average peak to peak value and the gear mesh
tone. Some analysis, such as demodulation analysis,
measures change in gear mesh tone amplitude or frequency.
However, none of these analyses measure the fundamental
artifact of a soft or cracked gear tooth: a high frequency
impulse due to the local fault.
This type of fault is difficult to detect with current
Fourier transforms (FFT) in that this transform measures
sinusoids tones and is relatively insensitive to periodic
impulse trains. Additionally, in a gear box, there are a
number of narrow band tones and broad band noise which
mask the desired impulse train. The system can be modeled
as:
x(n) = s(n) + y(n) + v(n)
where

The signal of interest s(n) and the noise signal v(n) are
uncorrelated
The noise signal v(n) is white
The signal of interest s(n) is wideband and has a short
correlation length (e.g. its impulsive), r(l) = 0 for l > D.
The interference signal y(n) has a long correlation
length: its autocorrelation length takes significant values
over the range 0 <= l <= M, for M > D

The first modeling assumption suggests:

E[x(n-k)yt(n)] = E[y(n-k)yt(n)] = ry(k)
Where
rx(l) = rs(l)+ry(l) + rv(l)
Assuming that the second and third modeling assumptions
hold true:
rx(l) = ry(l), for l != 0, 1, D-1
This means that the linear predictor at time n is based on
data delayed by d lags (e.g. the vector x(n-D)). This suggest
that, under these conditions, d = r, and c = a. This gives the
result that the optimal interference filter coefficients c is
equal to the D stop linear predictor of a, which can be

determined from the input signal x(n). The signal with

interference removed is then:

these types of signal can be used to identify impulsive

signals that cannot be seen in FFTs (figure 8)

x(n)-yh(n) = x(n) + atx(n-D) = e(n);

Note that a is and FIR filter based on delayed data. See
figure 6, which shows the filter response and the spectrum of
the gearbox. For a full description of the analysis, see ref[9].

Figure 8 Cepstrum of Error Signal

Figure 8 shows artifacts in the Cepstrum that is indicative of
periodic impluses with a time period of 1/Rev. These signals
are not present in the good data.
Figure 6 Gearbox Spectrum and LPC Derived Filter
Response
As an example, analysis was conducted on the good and
faulted gear. The fault, as noted, was a chipped tooth, that
should result in a 1/revolution impact. The sample rate is
102 KHz, with 2 seconds of time domain data. The lag (D)
was 1, and the filter size (M) was 400. The ratio of the error
peak to peak to standard deviation was 81.4 for the faulted
gear, and 37.5 for the nominal case. Figure 7 clearly shows
the period impulse associated with the gear fault.

Empirical Mode Decomposition

EMD was proposed by Huang [10]. It is a new method for
adaptive analysis of non-linear and non-stationary signals.
The EMD technique decomposes a signal into a finite sum
of components called intrinsic mode functions (IMF).
Hilbert transform is then applied to IMFs to obtain both the
envelope signal and the instantaneous frequency. The
detailed procedure of EMD technique can be found in [10]
In general, the Hilbert transform H [ x(t )] for a given signal
x(t) is defined as
H [ x(t )] = y(t ) =

1 + x( )
d

eq (7)

When y(t) is obtained, the analytic signal z(t) can be defined

as:
z (t ) = x(t ) + jy(t ) = E (t )e j ( t )

Where

E (t ) = x (t ) + y (t )

(t) = tan 1

and

eq (8)

y(t)
x(t)

The envelope signal is defined as

Figure 7 Detection of Gear 1/Rev Gear Impulse
Periodic impulses in the time domain generate multiple
harmonics in the frequency domain. The real Cepstrum of

E (t ) = x 2 (t ) + y 2 (t )

eq (8)

The EMD is applied to the vibration signal of both healthy

and damaged gearbox. Among the IMF components the 3rd

IMF component was found to be associated with the gear

meshing frequency of 1600 Hz. The Fourier spectrum of the
envelope signal of the IMF 3 is calculated and shown in
Figure 8 and Figure 9. From Figure 9, it is easy to find the
high peak value at the gear fault frequency, which is 33.33
Hz. Since we are interested in the gear fault frequency of
33.33 Hz, the kurtosis value of the envelope spectrum
between 30 Hz and 40 Hz can reveal the fault of the
gearbox. The kurtosis is a fourth-order statistic normalized
by the square of the variance, in the discrete domain it can
be calculated as following,
1 N (x(t i ) )

N i =1
4

Kurtosis =

eq(9)

Forty groups of vibration data, twenty for healthy gearbox

and twenty for damaged gearbox, are processed by EMD
and the envelope spectrum of the 3rd IMF components are
calculate and the kurtosis values in the frequency range of
30 to 40 Hz are obtained. The mean value of the spectrum
kurtosis for the damaged gear is 4.4968 and the standard
deviation is 2.2180. The mean value of the spectrum
kurtosis for the healthy gear is 2.6733 and the standard
deviation is 0.6986.

nominal and faulted data allowed evaluation of other

advanced signal processing techniques. An array processing
technique for beam forming did not perform well. However,
a narrowband interferance canceller may potenatially lead to
better detection of chiped tooth on gears. Success was also
found in using empirical mode decomposition.
We anticipate additional work on this gear box. New
accelerometer mounting points will be machined to allow
array processing techniques to be developed. Additional CI
development will be conducted using both Narrowband
Interference Canceller and Empirical Mode Decomposition
techniques. These new CI performance will be quantified
against the current CI performance. Eventually, we wish to
broaden the scope of the faults used to include gear tooth
machining error and gear misalignment.
REFERENCES
[1] White, G., Split Torque Transmission USPTO,
4,489,625, November 23, 1982
[2] Gmirya, Y., Split Torque Gearbox for Rotor Wing
Aircraft with Translational Thrust System, USPTO,
7,413,142, August 19, 2008
[3] Krantz, T., Vibration Analysis of a Split Path Gearbox
NASA Technical Memorandum 106875, AIAA-95-3048.

Gear Fault Frequency 33.33 Hz

[4] Krantz, T. Code to Optimize Load Sharing of SplitTorque Transmissions Applied to the Comanche
Helicopter, grc.nasa.gov/WWW/RT/RT1995/2000/2730k
[5] Wemhoff, E., Chin, H., Begin, M., Gearbox Diagnostics
Development Using Dynamic Modeling American
Helicopter Society 63th Annual Forum, 2007.

Figure 9 Fourier Spectrum of Health Gear Data

Gear Fault Frequency 33.33 Hz

[6] Decker, H. J., Crack Detection for Aerospace Quality

Spur Gears, NASA TM-2003021220 REV 1, 2003.
[7] Combet, F., Gelman, L., An Automated Methodology
for Performing Time Synchronous Averaging of a Gearbox
Signal without Speed Sensor, Mechanical Systems and
Signal Processing, Volume 21, Issue 6, August 2007.
[8] Wackerly, D., Mendenhall, W., Scheaffer, R.,
Mathematical Statistics with Applications, Wadsworth
Publishing Co, 1996, page 441.
[9] Manolakis, D., Ingle, V., Kogon, S., Statistical and
Adaptive Signal Processing, McGraw-Hill, 2000.

Figure 10 Fourier Spectrum of Damaged Gear

CONCLUSIONS
This study evaluated a number of gear fault dection
algorithms when applied to a split torque gearbox design.
Many traditional Condition Indicators (CI) where shown to
be effective in detecting a chiped gear tooth. Access to

[10] Norden, E. Huang, Shen, Z., Steven, R. Long, Manlic,

W., The Empirical Mode Decomposition and the Hilbert
Spectrum for Nonlinear and Non-stationary Time Series
Analysis, Proceeding Royal Society of London A, Volume
454, Issue1971, March 1998.