We endeavour to develop state-of-the-art methods and techniques for condition and health monitoring of systems to predict the decay in performance over time in a cost-effective way.
Engine condition trend monitoring is quite common in civil aviation but engine manufacturers do not support all engine models, especially for military applications. Health monitoring is available on some civil and military helicopter drive trains, but it is not common on other systems.
Our first goal is to device methods that we can apply to monitor the condition or usage of systems that are not supported yet. Our second goal is to be able to determine if condition or usage monitoring is cost-effective for unsupported systems.
For our feasibility study we reconstruct an engine model based on measured environmental and performance parameters. This engine model can help us to monitor the condition of engines. We also run a business case to determine if condition monitoring is a cost-effective measure for this specific engine system.
Our technical feasibility study shows an array of different analytical methods and techniques to reconstruct system models for condition or health monitoring. Our economic feasibility study gives clear insights in the economic considerations.
These feasibility studies give us a range of analytical methods and techniques to monitor the condition and usage of unsupported systems. It also gives us tools to determine the economies of condition-based maintenance of unsupported systems.
The results, partially obtained through a PhD research project, offer us practical means to assess the technical and economic feasibility of condition-based maintenance of specific systems.