Prognostics/Diagnostics for Improved Gas Turbine Engine Reliability and Maintainability

"Impact Technologies, in cooperation with GE Aircraft Engines, Rolls Royce and UDRI/UES, propose to develop, implement and validate specific diagnostic and prognostic (D&P) technologies designed for real-time, automated health assessment of oil-wettedcomponents in gas turbine engines. Various corroborating D&P technologies from different engineering disciplines, including oil analysis, vibration/thermal analysis and rotordynamic modeling, have been integrated together under a Phase I demonstrationusing automated reasoning and intelligent data fusion algorithms. Based on these successful results, continued development and implementation of this integrated approach will be applied to bearings from various AFRL engine test rigs, as well as OEMsupported tests including a Rolls Royce AE 1107C engine and a GE Y120 counter rotating bearing application (both GE and RR have provided in-kind contributions to support these tests). Through intelligent fusion of the health monitoring data andmodel-based techniques demonstrated in Phase I, a comprehensive component prognostic capability will be achieved, using model-based estimates when no diagnostic indicators are present and monitored features such as oil debris and vibration at later stageswhen failure indications are detectable. Only through the utilization of these multiple sources of engineering information can up-to-date assessments and predictions of component remaining useful life be d