An Overview for Prognostics Based Maintenance (PBM) of New and Used Aero-engines in China: Theory and Methods

摘要

This paper outlines an overview of the study of prognostic maintenance problems for newly manufactured and used aero-engines in China. We seek to study the following four issues with a goal to develop new theory and methods of the whole .system life-cycle prognostic maintenance. The first issue is to research the formation mechanism of charged particles resulting from the failure of the critical components and establish the principle and methods of the electrostatic monitoring sensors. The second issue is to establish failure trending models based on sensor data, the combination of sensor information and physical models to predict the performance degradation of the whole system and the time and the distribution of component functional failures. The third Issue is to establish aero-engine maintenance decision-making models and methods based on multi-agent cooperative diagnosis and failure trending prediction. This decision is for the whole system life-cycle which involves the estimation of the maintenance scope, repair depth, remaining life, optimization of maintenance intervals and considers the factors of spare engines, the unbalanced replacement rate and the insurance cost etc.. The fourth issue is to develop a prototype of a predictive maintenance decision support system. We aim to provide a guidance for the design of Prognostics and Health Management capability of new engines and the maintenance and support for engines in operation. This will improve the safety, reliability and availability for operation and maintenance while reduce the cost of maintenance and support. A comprehensive case example is shown to demonstrate the research issues.