Diagnostics, Prognostics, and Health Management for March 7, 2006

Talk Title:

Diagnostics, Prognostics, and Health Management for
Aircraft Engines

Speaker:
Dr. Ravi Rajamani
Diagnostics, Prognostics & Health Management
Pratt & Whitney Company
East Hartford, CT, USA

Time and Venue: 11.00 am, New Conference Hall

Date: March 8, 2006

Abstract:

The increasing complexity and stringent performance requirements
of modern jet engines have made engine health management an important
component of aircraft operations. The goal is to lower lifetime ownership
costs through increased fleet reliability and average time on wing.
Continuous monitoring and early anomaly warning capability can buy
precious time for the operator in terms of taking preventive actions. The
ultimate goal is to improve operational safety, minimize downtime, and
improve asset management via condition-based maintenance.

In this talk I will give a brief overview of what Pratt & Whitney is doing
in this area, as well as present some results we have obtained using
innovative diagnostics techniques. Specifically I will present results on
data normalization and fault isolation. We have shown, for example, that a
hybrid model using elements of physical laws and empirical techniques such
as neural networks does a better job of predicting engine parameters than
either technique alone. We also use Kalman filtering techniques for fault
isolation.