A simple state-based prognostic model for filter clogging

In today's maintenance planning, fuel filters are replaced or cleaned on a regular basis. Monitoring and implementation of prognostics on filtration system have the potential to avoid costs and increase safety. Prognostics is a fundamental technology within Integrated Vehicle Health Management (IVHM). Prognostic models can be categorised into three major categories: 1) Physics-based models 2) Data-driven models 3) Experience-based models. One of the challenges in the progression of the clogging filter failure is the inability to observe the natural clogging filter failure due to time constraint. This paper presents a simple solution to collect data for a clogging filter failure. Also, it represents a simple state-based prognostic with duration information (SSPD) method that aims to detect and forecast clogging of filter in a laboratory based fuel rig system. The progression of the clogging filter failure is created unnaturally. The degradation level is divided into several groups. Each group is defined as a state in the failure progression of clogging filter. Then, the data is collected to create the clogging filter progression states unnaturally. The SSPD method consists of three steps: clustering, clustering evaluation, and remaining useful life (RUL) estimation. Prognosis results show that the SSPD method is able to predicate the RUL of the clogging filter accurately

A new adaptive prognostics approach based on hybrid feature selection with application to point machine monitoring

This paper proposes a new adaptive prognostics approach consisting of hybrid feature selection and remaining-useful-life (RUL) estimation steps for railway point machines. In step-1, different time-domain based features are extracted and the best ones are selected by the hybrid feature selection method. Then, a degradation model is fitted to each of the selected features and the parameters are estimated. In step-2, the RUL of the component is predicted by using the proposed adaptive prognostics approach. The adaptive prognostics is based on the weighted likelihood combination of the estimated model parameters. The model parameters each of which estimated by curve fitting are used in the calculation of the likelihood probability weights. Then, an adaptive degradation model is built by using the weighted combination of the model parameter estimates and the component RUL is estimated. The proposed approach is validated on in-field point machine sliding-chair degradation and the results are discussed

Degradation-level assessment and online prognostics for sliding chair failure on point machines

This paper presents a degradation-level assessment and failure prognostics methodology for degrading systems. The proposed methodology consists of offline and online phases. In the offline phase, different time-domain health indicators (HIs) are extracted and the best indicator of degradation is selected by filter-based methods. Then, a degradation model is defined and its parameters are estimated using the selected HI. In the online phase, the k-means clustering is utilized to detect a change(s) in the system’s health state and to trigger failure prognostics for remaining useful life (RUL) prediction. The degradation model parameters are updated as new data are available, and the RUL is predicted iteratively. The proposed methodology is implemented on point machine sliding chair degradation using in-field condition monitoring (CM) data. The results show that the methodology can be effectively used in machine degradation-level assessment and in online RUL predictions

Approaches for diagnosis and prognosis of asset condition: application to railway switch systems

This thesis presents a novel fault diagnosis and prognosis methodology which is applied to railway switches. To improve on existing fault diagnosis, energy-based thresholding wavelets (EBTW) are introduced. EBTW are used to decompose sensor measurement signals, and then to reconstruct them within a lower dimensional feature vector. The extracted features replace the original signals and are fed into a neural network classifier for fault diagnosis. Compared to existing wavelet-based feature extraction methods, the new EBTW method has the advantage of an intrinsic energy conservation property during the wavelet transform process. The EBTW method localises and redistributes the signal energy to realise an efficient feature extraction and dimension reduction. The presented diagnosis approach is validated using real-world switch data collected from the Guangzhou Metro in China. The results show that the proposed diagnosis approach can achieve 100% accuracy in identifying a railway switch overdriving fault with various severities, improving upon existing methods of conventional discrete wavelet transform (C-DWT) and soft-thresholding discrete wavelet transform (ST-DWT) by 8.33% and 16.67%, respectively. The presented prognosis approach is constructed based on traditional data-driven prognosis modelling. The concept of a remaining maintenance-free operating period (RMFOP) is introduced, which transforms the usefulness of sensor measurement data that is readily available from operations prior to failure. Useful features are then extracted from the original measurement data, and modelled using linear and exponential regression curve fitting models. By extracting key features, the original measurement data can be transformed into degradation signals that directly reflect the variations in each movement of a switch machine. The features are then fed into regression models to derive the probability distribution of switch residual life. To update the probability distribution from one operation to the next, Bayesian theory is incorporated into the models. The proposed RMFOP-based approach is validated using real-world electrical current sensor measurement data that were collected between January 2018 and February 2019 from multiple operational railway switches across Great Britain. The results show that the linear model and the exponential model can both provide residual life distributions with a satisfactory prediction accuracy. The exponential model demonstrates better predictions, the accuracy of which exceeds 95% when 90% life percentage has elapsed. By applying the RMFOP-based prognosis approach to operational data, the railway switch health condition that is affected by incipient overdriving failure is predicted

Segmentation Based Feature Evaluation and Fusion for Prognostics

Quantification of feature goodness, called feature evaluation, is crucial in the identification of best features and achieving high accuracy in diagnostics and prognostics. Even though feature evaluation for diagnostics is a mature area, it is a developing research area for prognostics. The feature goodness for prognostics is measured by change in degradation. Most, if not all, of existing methods, analyze the feature change in the whole failure degradation. In other words, features collected throughout the failure degradation are analyzed to create a goodness value for the feature. In reality, the goodness of the features may change during the failure progression. A feature may be a good representative of failure progression in the initial phase but not in the final phases, or vice versa. This paper presents a methodology that divides the features into segments, each of which may have different goodness for prognostics. Thus, some part of the feature may be good, whereas the others not. The presented approach leads to extract more value from the features’ changing properties during the failure degradation. The method has been applied to simulated and real datasets obtained from Li-ion batteries aging tests. State of health (SoH) estimation accuracy is enhanced with the presented approach

Feature selection and fault‐severity classification–based machine health assessment methodology for point machine sliding‐chair degradation

In this paper, we propose an offline and online machine health assessment (MHA) methodology composed of feature extraction and selection, segmentation‐based fault severity evaluation, and classification steps. In the offline phase, the best representative feature of degradation is selected by a new filter‐based feature selection approach. The selected feature is further segmented by utilizing the bottom‐up time series segmentation to discriminate machine health states, ie, degradation levels. Then, the health state fault severity is extracted by a proposed segment evaluation approach based on within segment rate‐of‐change (RoC) and coefficient of variation (CV) statistics. To train supervised classifiers, a priori knowledge about the availability of the labeled data set is needed. To overcome this limitation, the health state fault‐severity information is used to label (eg, healthy, minor, medium, and severe) unlabeled raw condition monitoring (CM) data. In the online phase, the fault‐severity classification is carried out by kernel‐based support vector machine (SVM) classifier. Next to SVM, the k‐nearest neighbor (KNN) is also used in comparative analysis on the fault severity classification problem. Supervised classifiers are trained in the offline phase and tested in the online phase. Unlike to traditional supervised approaches, this proposed method does not require any a priori knowledge about the availability of the labeled data set. The proposed methodology is validated on infield point machine sliding‐chair degradation data to illustrate its effectiveness and applicability. The results show that the time series segmentation‐based failure severity detection and SVM‐based classification are promising

Condition Based Maintenance of Low Speed Rolling Element Bearings using Hidden Markov Model

This paper presents an integrated hidden Markov model (HMM) approach to undertake fault diagnosis and maintenance planning for low-speed roller element bearings in a conveyor system. The components studied are relatively long-life components for which run-to-failure data is not available. Furthermore, the large number of these components in a conveyor system makes the individual monitoring of each bearing impractical. In this paper, HMM is employed to overcome both these challenges. For fault diagnosis, a number of bearings varying in age and usage were extracted from the system and tested to develop a baseline HMM model. This data was then used to calculate likelihood probabilities, which were subsequently used to determine the health state of an unknown bearing. For maintenance planning, experimentally determined thresholds from faulty bearings were used in conjunction with simulated degradation paths to parametrize a HMM. This HMM is then used to determine the state duration statistics and subsequently the calculation of residual useful life (RUL) based on bearing vibration data. The RUL distribution is then used for maintenance planning by optimizing the expected cost rate and the results so obtained are compared with the results obtained from a traditional age based replacement policy