Grinding chatter is a self-induced vibration which is unfavorable to precision machining processes. This paper proposes a forecasting method for grinding state identification based on bivarition empirical mode decomposition (BEMD) and least squares support vector machine (LSSVM), which allows the monitoring of grinding chatter over time. BEMD is a promising technique in signal processing research which involves the decomposition of two-dimensional signals into a series of bivarition intrinsic mode functions (BIMFs). BEMD and the extraction criterion of its true BIMFs are investigated by processing a complex-value simulation chatter signal. Then the feature vectors which are employed as an amplification for the chatter premonition are discussed. Furthermore, the methodology is tested and validated by experimental data collected from a CNC guideway grinder KD4020X16 in Hangzhou Hangji Machine Tool Co., Ltd. The results illustrate that the BEMD is a superior method in terms of processing non-stationary and nonlinear signals. Meanwhile, the peak to peak, real-time standard deviation and instantaneous energy are proven to be effective feature vectors which reflect the different grinding states. Finally, a LSSVM model is established for grinding status classification based on feature vectors, giving a prediction accuracy rate of 96%.

The rapid expansion of wind farms has accelerated research into improving the reliability of wind turbines to reduce operational and maintenance costs. A critical component in wind turbine drive-trains is the gearbox, which is prone to different types of failures due to long-term operation under tough environments, variable speeds and alternating loads. To detect gearbox fault early, a method is proposed for an effective fault diagnosis by using improved ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) and Hilbert square demodulation (HSD). The method was verified numerically by implementing the scheme on the vibration signals measured from bearing and gear test rigs. In the implementation process, the following steps were identified as being important: (1) in order to increase the accuracy of EEMD, a criterion of selecting the proper resampling frequency for raw vibration signals was developed; (2) to select the fault related intrinsic mode function (IMF) that had the biggest kurtosis index value, the resampled signal was decomposed into a series of IMFs; (3) the selected IMF was demodulated by means of HSD, and fault feature information could finally be obtained. The experimental results demonstrate the merit of the proposed method in gearbox fault diagnosis.

A vibration-based approach to detect crack damage for large structural systems by using the Hilbert—Huang transform (HHT) has been proposed. The proposed method has been numerically implemented on a composite wingbox. In the implementation process, the following steps have been identified as being important: (a) An optimization procedure is developed by genetic algorithm (GA) in order to determine the location of piezoelectric sensor for damage detection in a composite wingbox; (b) To solve the end effect problem of empirical mode decomposition (EMD), axis-symmetry signal extension method is introduced; (c) Finally, a damage detection method by using HHT is developed. Furthermore, the effect of noise is considered. Examination of the results confirms that the identification method is very robust.

The elevator door system plays a crucial role in ensuring elevator safety. Fault prediction is an invaluable tool for accident prevention. By analyzing the sound signals generated during operation, such as component wear and tear, the fault of the system can be accurately determined. This study proposes a GNN-LSTM-BDANN deep learning model to account for variations in elevator operating environments and sound signal acquisition methods. The proposed model utilizes the historical sound data from other elevators to predict the remaining useful life (RUL) of the target elevator door system. Firstly, the opening and closing sounds of other elevators is collected, followed by the extraction of relevant sound signal characteristics including A-weighted sound pressure level, loudness, sharpness, and roughness. These features are then transformed into graph data with geometric structure representation. Subsequently, the Graph Neural Networks (GNN) and long short-term memory networks (LSTM) are employed to extract deeper features from the data. Finally, transfer learning based on the improved Bhattacharyya Distance domain adversarial neural network (BDANN) is utilized to transfer knowledge learned from historical sound data of other elevators to predict RUL for the target elevator door system effectively. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can successfully predict potential failure timeframes for different elevator door systems.

Accelerated life test (ALT) is currently the main method of assessing product reliability rapidly, and the design of efficient test plans is a critical step to ensure that ALTs can assess the product reliability accurately, quickly, and economically. With the promotion of the national strategy of civil-military integration, ALT will be widely used in the research and development (R&D) of various types of products, and the ALT plan design theory will face further challenges. To aid engineers in selecting appropriate theories and to stimulate researchers to develop the theories required in engineering, with focus on the demands for theory research that arise from the implementation of ALT, this paper reviews and summarizes the development of ALT plan design theory. The development of the theory and method for planning optimal ALT for location-scale distribution, which is the most applied and mature theory of designing the optimal ALT plan, are described in detail. Taking this as the center of radiation, some problems that ALT now faces, such as the verification of the statistical model, limitation of sample size, solutions of resource limits, optimization of the test arrangement, and management of product complexity, are discussed, and the general ideas and methods of solving these problems are analyzed. Suggestions for selecting appropriate ALT plan design theories are proposed, and the urgent solved theory problems and opinions of their solutions are proposed. Based on the principle of convenience for engineers to select appropriate methods according to the problems found in practice, this paper reviews the development of optimal ALT plan design theory by taking the engineering problems arising from the ALT implementation as the main thread, provides guidelines on selecting appropriate theories for engineers, and proposes opinions about the urgent solved theory problems for researchers.