ON THE APPLICATION OF THE BETA-DISTRIBUTION TO GEAR DAMAGE ANALYSIS

The kurtosis of the beta distribution has been reported as a good indi cator of the condition of a gear. The characteristic, or shape, parame ters are usually estimated by the method of moments (MM). In this pape r, the parameters are estimated using both the method of moments and m aximum likelihood estimation (MLE) techniques. It is observed that the MLE technique provides better detection performance. Although the MLE technique requires more processing time, as compared to the MM techni que, it is still within the limits for on-line monitoring.