A SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR REAL-TIME PROGNOSTICS ANALYSIS AND RESIDUAL LIFE ASSESSMENT OF MACHINE COMPONENTS

• Main Author: KOUL, ASHOK AK
• Format: Patent
• Language: English; French
• Published: 08.06.2010
• Subjects: AIR INTAKES FOR JET-PROPULSION PLANTS; BLASTING; COMBUSTION ENGINES; CONTROLLING FUEL SUPPLY IN AIR-BREATHING JET-PROPULSION PLANTS; GAS-TURBINE PLANTS; HEATING; HOT-GAS OR COMBUSTION-PRODUCT ENGINE PLANTS; INDEXING SCHEME RELATING TO MACHINES OR ENGINES OTHER THANNON-POSITIVE-DISPLACEMENT MACHINES OR ENGINES, TO WIND MOTORS,TO NON-POSITIVE DISPLACEMENT PUMPS, AND TO GENERATING COMBUSTIONPRODUCTS OF HIGH PRESSURE OR HIGH VELOCITY; INDEXING SCHEMES RELATING TO ENGINES OR PUMPS IN VARIOUSSUBCLASSES OF CLASSES F01-F04; LIGHTING; MEASURING; MECHANICAL ENGINEERING; PHYSICS; TESTING; TESTING STATIC OR DYNAMIC BALANCE OF MACHINES ORSTRUCTURES; TESTING STRUCTURES OR APPARATUS NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR; WEAPONS

A method and a system called XactLIFE for providing continuous (real-time) prognostics analysis and display of the changes in the fracture critical locations and life consumption and residual (remaining) life of multiple turbine engine components by conducting physics based loads and damage analysis as a function of actual engine usage and changing engine operating environment. Each engine control system is connected to an interface and to a data analysis and a prognostics processor unit and routinely monitored engine parameters such as engine speed, TIT or EGT, ambient temperature and pressure and cooling airflow are measured in real--time. Data artefacts are removed and rule-based mission profile analysis is conducted to determine the mission variability and this in turn yields variability in the type of thermal-mechanical loads that an engine is subjected to during use. This is followed by combustor modeling to predict the combustion liner temperatures and combustion nozzle plane temperature distributions as a function of engine usage and this is further followed by off-design engine modeling to determine the pitch-line temperatures in hot gas path components and thermodynamic modeling to compute the component temperature profiles of gas path components for different stages of the turbine. This is automatically followed by finite element (FE) based non-linear stress-strain analysis using an real-time FE solver and physics based damage accumulation, life consumption and residual life prediction analyses using internal state variable (microstructural modeling) based damage and fracture analysis techniques. The system is capable of dealing with components that are manufactured out of metallic, ceramic or a combination of both types of components.