An Approach to the Health Monitoring of the Fuel System of a Turbofan

Abstract

This paper focuses on the monitoring of the fuel system of a turbofan which is the core organ of an aircraft engine control system. The paper provides a method for real time on-board monitoring and on-ground diagnosis of one of its subsystems: the hydromechanical actuation loop. First, a system analysis is performed to highlight the main degradation modes and potential failures. Then, an approach for a real-time extraction of salient features named indicators is addressed. On-ground diagnosis is performed through a learning algorithm and a classification method. Parameterization of the on-ground part needs a reference healthy state of the indicators and the signatures of the degradations. The healthy distribution of the indicators is measured on field data whereas a physical model of the system is utilized to simulate degradations, quantify indicators sensibility and construct the signatures. Eventually, algorithms are deployed and statistical validation is performed by the computation of key performance indicators (KPI)