Advanced Modeling to Characterize Failure Progression Rates from the Incipient Stage to Component Failure

"This SBIR proposes to extend crack detection technology past the detection stage, and develop a system that discriminates cracks, and also predicts the residual life left in a disk. The ultimate goal of this SBIR is to develop a test system to be used atthe depot maintenance level that can run a relatively simple set of tests on a disk and determine the residual life of the disk in terms of potential cycles. This system could be used as an important element in a Retirement for Cause disk life program,and/or as a critical check for disks before re-installed in an aircraft.This program will make use of an existing model developed by ExSell that describes in detail the change in center of mass of a rotating object with a crack as a function of speed, using damping ratio, initial unbalance and crack size as parameters. Thismodel will be extended to encompass a wide variety of disks, increased discrimination of different types of cracks, and a predictive algorithm that uses data from the test and the disk history to determine residual life. This SBIR is aimed at development of a test system to be sold to aircraft depot maintenance facilities to test disks as a part of a Retirement for Cause program.Commercial benefites include revenue to ExSell for system sales, and significant savings to the Navy and US Government through life extension of existing aircraft hardware."