Develop advanced diagnostics for ALRE bearings

Aircraft carrier arresting gear dissipate extreme amounts of energy over a very short duration. The arresting gear employs a series of cables, sheaves, wheel bearings, and arresting engines that must endure failure-free cyclic operation within the harsh marine environment. This operation imposes significant periodic replacement/maintenance requirements and costs that have been refined/tailored over many decades of operation. Because of the extreme cyclic loading of the arresting gear bearings, we propose to develop a test facility to validate arresting gear bearing life and to develop an integrated wheel bearing sensor/algorithms to monitor bearing life and optimize maintenance intervals. In Phase I, we will demonstrate the feasibility of our approach, followed by algorithm development in the Phase I Option. In Phase II, we will develop a full-scale test facility to collect bearing life data. In Phase III, we will develop a wheel bearing sensor to provide prognostic indication of bearing life.