Minimizing physical damage to mechanical equipment caused by cyber-attacks is currently a challenge. This work describes a new concept for protecting critical mechanical systems against such attacks in which a defense layer is added to the critical rotating machine to prevent hostile entities from damaging it. The machine includes a mechanical component – a rolling element bearing (REB) – which acts as a “fuse” mechanism. It is designed so that under cyber-attack the “fuse” REB will be damaged first, ahead of other critical components. Moreover, the defense layer includes condition monitoring (CM) tools designed for the “fuse” REB. As far as we know, this is the first work that shows how CM tools can be used as a protective layer against cyber-attack. This study describes the design concepts and focuses on early fault detection and condition monitoring solutions via vibration analysis. Endurance tests were conducted to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed concept and yield insights into the analysis process of the failure modes that were developed in the “fuse” REB.

将网络攻击对机械设备的物理损坏降至最低目前是一个挑战。这项工作描述了一种保护关键机械系统免受此类攻击的新概念，其中在关键旋转机器上增加了一层防御层，以防止敌对实体对其造成损害。该机器包括一个机械部件–滚动轴承（REB）–充当“保险丝”机构。其设计旨在在网络攻击下首先破坏“保险丝” REB，然后再破坏其他关键组件。此外，防御层包括为“保险丝” REB设计的状态监视（CM）工具。据我们所知，这是第一篇展示CM工具如何用作网络攻击防护层的工作。这项研究描述了设计概念，并着重于通过振动分析的早期故障检测和状态监视解决方案。进行了耐力测试，以证明所提出的概念的可行性，并对“保险丝” REB中开发的失效模式的分析过程产生深刻见解。