A Prognostic System for Turbine Engines

A measurement technology currently under development by the proposer will be utilized to develop,a health-monitoring system (HMS) to determine the integrity of a rotating turbine engine under normal operation. The HMS detects changing conditions of rotating elements in time to avoid their failure during operation and to allow repair or replacement at a more convenient time. The complete system will consist of (i) a measurement subsystem to collect and process a time array of data; (ii) an empirical database for reference; and (iii) a pattern-recognition subsystem (PRS) to interpret the measured and stored data. The measurement subsystem relates travelling torsional waves on each side of the rotating component to each other by their transmission/reflection/absorption coefficients. This nonintrusive network method is similar to those applied in the past to other wave phenomena, such as microwaves and acoustics. Temporal changes in these coefficients will be monitored and provide a measure of the rotating-component deterioration. The proposed Phase I program will determine the measurement subsystem and establishes feasibility through performance simulation of the designed hardware subsystem. The empirical database and the PRS will be developed in later program stages.