Improved Method for Determining the Remaining
Useful Life of a Component
Eric Bechhoefer Lei Xiao
GPMS Int. Inc Donghua University
Cornwall, VT USA Shanghai, China
eric@gpms-vt.com leixiao211@dhu.edu.cn
Abstract—High value asset vehicles, or vehicles where
safety/operational readiness is important, can greatly benefit from
an accurate remaining useful life (RUL) estimate. For these assets,
RUL allows operators to realize revenue because of improved
availability. This paper uses an improved hybrid, high cycle
fracture mechanics model to more accurately estimate the RUL.
The hybrid method’s performance is validated using trendability
and monotonicity against two existing models using a real-world
data set. The improved model allows a longer time period to
marshal the resources needed for repair or give operations
personnel an extended window to bring other assets to cover
missions that would otherwise be unavailable.
Keywords-RUL; PHM; Condition Monitoring; High Cycle
Fatigue
I. INTRODUCTION
Often the true cost of unscheduled maintenance is not the
repair cost of the asset, but the opportunity cost. Opportunity
cost is the lost revenue or ability to perform a mission because
the asset is not available. While condition-based maintenance
practices can often improve readiness and safety, it may not
address the need for a prognostic. A prognostic capability
estimates the remaining useful life (RUL) of a monitoring
component. The ability to inform an operator of an asset’s RUL
allows the operator to order long lead time parts, schedule the
asset for maintenance, and have available the skill set requires to
restore the assets’ damaged component to service. This then
allows the asset to be availability to generate revenue as opposed
to being down some indefinite time for maintenance. This
proactive maintenance policy reduces the opportunity cost of
unscheduled maintenance by shifting it into scheduled
maintenance.
While several RUL techniques have been reported, this
proposed new algorithm improves upon exiting, model-based
RUL methods. The term improvement implies that the estimate
of RUL is more consistently accurate over time (monotonicity
and trendability). This improvement was achieved using two
novel ideas.
The first improvement is the realization that fatigue damage,
such as spalling of a bearing, gear tooth root bending, or shaft
coupling failure, could result from a combination of degradation
modes.
Xinghui Zhang
Intelligent Mobile Robot Research
Institute (Zhongshan)
Beijing, China
dynamicbnt@163.com
The growth of fatigue cracks has been studied extensively
[6] and several models have been developed to explain high
cycle fatigue degradation. As reported in [5], crack growth can
be modeled as a linear elastics fracture where the crack surface
is forced directly apart. This is known as an opening mode
(Mode 1) failure model.
In a Mode 2 failure model, the crack surfaces move normal
to the crack from and remain in the crack plane. Head’s theory
is one such model that used this failure mode. Finally, if the
crack surface moves parallel to the crack as it forms and remains
in the crack plain, this is a Mode 3 failure. One such modeling
using this process is Dislocation theory [5].
In “Contending Remaining Useful Life Algorithms” [9], the
authors explored RUL algorithms based on Mode 1, 2 and 3
failure models. While no model was perfect in its estimation, the
data suggested that the actual degradation mode was a
combination of Mode 1 and Mode 3 fatigue failure. It is
hypothesized that because of the components often have
complex shapes, as gears/bearings, the component suffers
fatigue damage as a combination of modes. Hence, it is proposed
that fatigue failure is a combination of Mode 1 and Mode 3
damage. Furthermore, a combined, hybrid model would
facilitate a better prediction of crack growth. This, in turn, allows
for an improved estimate of the RUL.
The other improvement is observation that while crack
growth is nonlinear (e.g., the rate of change of a crack length
grows faster as the crack length increases), the RUL is linear.
That is, for any given load, the RUL rate of change (dRUL/dt) is
always -1. For example, if the life of a component is given as
100 hours, after one hour of usage, the life should logically be
99 hours. This seemingly obvious observation can be used
mathematically to improve the estimate of the RUL calculation
as it is an extra observable when using state reconstruction
algorithms.
II. BACKGROUND OF THE IMPROVEMENT
Commercially, there are several applications of condition
monitoring where the estimate of RUL would be beneficial. For
example, in the wind power generation industry, condition
monitoring allows better balance of plant, and optimization of
resources. The opportunity cost is the lost revenue when the
machine is down. When a wind turbine fails, because of the cost
of the crane for major maintenance, knowing the RUL of a
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number of machines allows the operator to better schedule the
crane. As opposed to marshalling a crane four times to repair
four different wind turbines, if the RUL of four wind turbines is
known and its likely repair is needed in the next month, then the
crane is marshaled once and maintenance is conducted on all
four wind turbines, save cost.
Alternatively, in the aviation market, health and usage
monitoring systems (HUMS) have been developed to enhance
reliability and safety. While HUMS provides condition
monitoring support of the drivetrain, it typically supports engine
performance evaluation, fleet optimization quality assurance
(FOQA, which evaluates how the aircraft is flown) and RTB
(rotor track and balance, which is a common maintenance
requirement for helicopters).
Helicopters generate revenue only when they are performing
a mission. Hence there is a large opportunity cost associated with
down time. Many helicopter missions are also critical – such as
firefighting or air ambulance services. As such, the operator may
pay a penalty when unable to meet a commitment.
The way aircraft and helicopters are operated is well suited
to exploiting the information that an RUL provides. Aviation
assets in general, are maintenance intensive, requiring periodic
maintenance every 50 to 100 hours of flight time. Heavier
maintenance actions occur annually. Many commercial
operators achieve 500 to 800 hours of flight per year, or 30 to 60
hours of flight time per month. It is rare for helicopter operators
to achieve over 800 hours of annual flight time.
Hence, with a RUL capability of 70 to 100 hours, the
opportunistic maintenance planning horizon is then one to two
months. Operators with accurate RUL can then ensure that the
right personnel, tools, and parts on hand to performance the
maintenance. For example, Fig. 1. shows a trending upper mast
ball bearing fault. The RUL recommends maintenance to be
performed in 50 hours, although it has been trending for over the
100 hours. The maintainer understands the bearing needed to be
replaced, but decided to wait until an annual inspection, which
will occur in the near future.
HUMS was mandated for Type 29 (heavy) helicopter
market, for over water transport. Here, condition monitoring is a
safety of flight concern as the helicopter can have long transit
over water. In general, the light utility helicopter (Type 27
aircraft) does not have over water transits, so HUMS is not a
safety of flight concern. Instead, HUMS allows for reduced
unscheduled maintenance, an improved sense of safety, and
improved readiness.
For the upper mast ball fault (Fig. 1), the consequence of not
doing maintenance is a chip light indicator. This would require
the pilot to land as soon as practicable. After landing (which may
be a parking lot or convenient field) the pilot would inspect the
chip plug for the size of the metal debris. If large, the pilot would
perform a 30-minute power run and again inspect the plug. If the
plug had more debris or chip light on the test run, the aircraft is
pulled from service. This then requires an inspection of the
gearbox, replacement of the faulted part and loss of revenue for
perhaps a month. In this example, replacing the bearing
proactively to avoid unscheduled maintenance greatly reduced
cost.
Figure 1. Trending Upper Mast Ball Bearing with RUL of 53 Hours
III.REQUIREMENTS FOR PROGNSTOICS AND RUL
ESTIMATION
A prognostic requires four data input to estimate a RUL:
1. The current health of the component,
2. A threshold for the component health that indicates
when it is necessary to do a corrective maintenance
action,
3. Some metric of the predicted load that component
will see,
4. A model of the crack propagation or degradation
model that takes the health of the component, and
the predicted load to estimate the time until
corrective maintenance is required.
HUMS and other condition monitoring systems are designed
to support drivetrain diagnostics. Most HUMS have several
accelerometers used to acquire vibration, which is sampled
synchronously with a tachometer input. The tachometer zero
crossing data, along with configuration (such as the ratio from
the tachometer to the shaft under analysis, the number of teeth
on a gear associated with that shaft and bearing fault data
frequency) allow the calculation of condition indicators. These
condition indicators (CIs) represent features associated with
faults. For example, the residual kurtosis of the time
synchronous average increases linearly with the reduction is
stiffness associated with a cracked tooth. See Vercer [1] for a
more detailed explanation of various condition indicator
algorithms.
To determine if maintenance is required or appropriate, an
evaluation is made with the calculated CIs for a given
component. In some systems this may be treated as a
classification problem. That is, machine learning or some
artificial neural network (ANN) application classifies the
component, based on the CIs as nominal or damage.
This methodology is not necessarily well suited to this
application, as the fault detection problem is asymmetric. That
is, it is easy to get nominal data, but fault data is rare, expensive
and in general, not available. Consider, for example, the M250
C47 engine that is on the Bell 407. The power turbine side the
engine gearbox, has five shafts, which with three or more failure
modes. There are six gears (with six failure modes) and thirteen
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bearings (four failure modes) for a total or 5 × 3 + 6 × 6 + 12
× 4, or a total of 99 test conditions. Each of these engines cost
roughly three-quarters of a million dollars. There is simple no
way to empirically collect a representative dataset to test all
these test cases.
However, a typical condition monitoring system can collect
10 to 20 acquisitions per hour. In a short operating period, the
probability distributions of the CIs can be well characterized.
With such data, a formal hypothesis test can be implemented.
That is, the CIs are used to reject hypothesis that the components
are nominal. Of course, for the performance of the hypothesis
test to be valid (as measured by false alarm rate (Type I error) or
missed detection (Type II error)), the underlying assumptions of
the test must be correct [2,3].
IV. THRESHOLD SETTING USING HYPOTHSIS TESTING
Consider that one of the most common condition indicators
is magnitude derived from a Fourier Transform for some give
frequency (such as shaft rate or bearing fault feature). For a
Gaussian signal, it can be shown that the distribution of the CI is
Rayleigh [2]. Note that the Rayleigh distributions mean value
and variance are:
𝜇 = 𝛽$𝜋⁄2 , 𝜎 ! = (2 − 𝜋⁄2)𝛽! (1)
This is useful, as it shows that for nominal components, the
spectrum should be Rayleigh. Note that both the mean value and
variance share the term b, and that the PDF can be described
solely by this value b. Hence as the component degrades, as
measured by an increasing mean value or variance, there will be
evidence to reject the null hypothesis that the component is
healthy.
As we noted, there are several different failure modes for any
give components. It is also the case that not ever CI is sensitive
to each failure mode. For example, a bearing will have a cage,
ball (roller element), inner race or outer race fault. To evaluate
the condition of the bearing, these four CIs would be needed to
evaluate the component health. Hence, from the perspective of
the prognostic architecture, there is a choice. Should an RUL be
estimated for each CI, or should the CIs be fused into a health
indicator (HI).
In the case of a CI approach to RUL, each CI is propagated
forward in time to calculate its RUL. The component CI is then
the minimum of all the calculated RUL. This increases the
computation burden and from a display perspective is not ideal
– its far easier to calculate one HI and generate one RUL which
is assigned directly to the component.
In using the HI approach, we can control the false alarm rate
by observing the HI is a function of the CIs distribution. This
will only be true if the CIs are independent (no correlation) and
identical distributions (a term call IID). As we can show that
many of the CIs are nearly Rayleigh (or can be transformed to
be Rayleigh), the issues resolve to making each Rayleigh CI both
identical and independent. By dividing by the CIs standard
deviation, b will be: 1.5264 = 1⁄$2 − 𝜋⁄2. Hence, this is a
method to make the CIs identical.
The process of removing correlation between CIs is known
as whitening. Whiting ensures that the realized false alarm rate
of a fielded system will be what was designed. Consider the
thought experiment where the HI is the sum of two CIs (X and
Y) that are Gaussian with s = 1. Then the standard deviation of
X+Y is:
𝜎"#$ = $𝜎"! + 𝜎$! + 2𝜌𝜎" 𝜎$ (2)
Here r is the correction between X and Y. If the correlation
is near 0, the standard deviation is sqrt(2). However, if the
correlation is nonzero (or worst case near 1) the standard
deviation is 2. Hence, the observed PFA (which is based on the
HI standard deviation) of the HUMS when the data is correlated
with will be much higher than designed. This would result in
needless maintenance.
A whitening transform can be constructed using the
Cholesky decomposition of the inverse covariance matrix. This
is in effect the square root of the covariance (i.e., standard
deviation). When multiply this by the measured vector of CIs
(e.g., designated as CI), it will produce the identical and
independent conditions needed by the HI algorithm. The whiting
transform is:
𝑳𝑳𝑻 = 𝚺&𝟏 (3)
where S is the sample covariance of the CIs used for the HI
algorithm. The HI algorithm become:
𝐻𝐼 = 𝑠𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑒⁄𝑐𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 √𝑪𝑰𝑻 𝑳𝑳𝑻 𝑪𝑰 (4)
It can be show [3] that the distribution the HI in (4) is a
Nakagami distribution. The critical value is set by using the
inverse cumulative probability function (ICPF). The ICPF
requires a probability of false alarm. Usually, this is taken to be
small, such as 1e-6. Additionally, it requires the descriptive
statistics for the Nakagami (h, w) where h is the n, number of
CIs used in the HI algorithm and:
𝜔 = 2𝑛⁄(2 − 𝜋⁄2) (5)
The scale value is used to define the HI value when the
component is deemed no longer nominal. That is, if the scale
value is 0.35, the component is identified at damaged. For a HI
using four CIs, the critical value for a PFA of 1e-6 is: 9.9744.
V. RUL CALCULATION
The RUL will be defined at the time from the current HI
value from (4), until the HI meets some upper threshold level.
This level represents damage where it is appropriate to do
maintenance. For aviation, and most application where the
desire is to optimize operational readiness, the RUL does not
represent the time of failure. The RUL is simply the time where
to not perform maintenance significantly reduces the reliability
of the system. This paradigm ensures the continued safety and
availability of the asset and supports existing maintenance task.
Consider how the OEM develops a scheduled maintenance
interval. By analysis of the expected loads, the OEM determines
an inspection interval that should catch any propagating fault
prior to the next inspection. Essentially, the interval is chosen
such that the total system reliability remains high. For aviation,
the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) designs the
components to a reliability of “6-9s”, or that the probability of a
component failure is less than 1e-6 per flight hour.
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 Condition monitoring can then be thought of as a virtual
inspection. The RUL is then estimating when a virtual inspection
would require maintenance. Hence, an RUL triggered
maintenance event results in the repair of a damaged component
and restores the system to the OEM’s design reliability. From
the perspective of the maintainer, then:
• The HI has a low probability of false alarm, and when
the HI is greater than scale (in this example, 0.35), the
component is no longer nominal.
• When the HI is greater the 0.75 (e.g., Warning), it is
highly likely that the component is damaged, and the
maintainer should schedule maintenance.
• The RUL is the time from the current HI value to a value
of 1. The HI is greater than 1, the component is in Alarm
and maintenance should be initiated.
• For an HI of one, the component shows physical
damage, but is not at risk of catastrophic failure.
From numerous run-to-failure experiments, we have found
that bearings typically fail catastrophically with HI values
between 10 and 20, whereas a gear failure occurs at an HI of 3
to 5. It is important to note that an HI of 1 does not indicate
failure. Failure for many assets is life threatening or causes
added expense due to collateral damage. Instead, the HI
threshold of 1 is a balance between maximizing the usage of the
component while reducing the risk of collateral damage and/or
failure under operation. Performing maintenance when the HI is
1 restore the reliability of the system to the OEM designed.
Hence, the RUL is the define as the estimated time from the
measured HI until the HI is 1.
A. Fatique Crack Propogation using The Linear Elastic
Model
Assuming a Mode 1 fatigue crack model undergoing tensile
cyclic loading of less than 30% of yield, the rate of change of the
crack length (2a), is shown to be:
()
= 𝐷(Δ𝐾)+ (6)
(*
where
• The rate of change of the half crack length per cycle is
da/dN,
• D is a material constant
• DK is the gross stain (s corrected by a shape factor a)
• m is the crack growth exponent, typically 4.
Substituting DK into (6) gives:
() ,- + +-
(*
= 𝐷 I2𝜎(𝜋) ! 𝛼K 𝑎 ! (7)
Inverting and integrating to get the number of cycles, N is:
&+-
𝑁 = ∫) ! 𝑎
) !
N , + 𝑑𝑎 (8)
"
𝐷 I2𝜎(𝜋) -! 𝛼K
By taking the crack length a as the current measured value
ao, and using estimating of the inverse crack growth rate (dN/da),
the constants cancel out, leaving the number of cycles:
+-
!
𝑎 − 𝑎/ Q𝑎. ⁄𝑎/ R
𝑁 = −𝑑𝑁P𝑑𝑎 . N𝑚 (9)
P2 − 1
Substituting the crack growth exponent as 4 (common for
steal) the estimate of the number of cycles for the RUL is:
𝑎
𝑁 = −𝑑𝑁P𝑑𝑎 × 𝑎. × 𝑙𝑛 I /P𝑎. K (10)
As most machines operate at a constant RPM, N is then
proportional to time. We have no direct observation of crack
length on the component, so one uses the HI (based on the CIs)
as a surrogate for crack length. Hence, it is assumed that the
component health (the HI) is proportional to damage, such that
(10) defines the RUL estimate where the current HI replaces ao,
and 1 replaces af.
From (6), we see that the crack growth rate is a function of
gross strain. Higher cyclic strain accelerates the rate of crack
growth. However, during the integration of (8), the terms for
strain cancel out, implying the gross training between
subsequent measurement of a0 is the same. Load will vary with
time, but on average will be similar. However, it’s clear that as
load/usage increase, it will affect (5) resulting in a shorter RUL.
To model more aggressive loads to estimate, say, a worst case
bound on RUL, apply a correction of -dN/da × 1.10 in (10).
B. Fatique Crack Propogation using The Dislocation Theory
Model
If crack propagation is driven by anti-plane strain, the this is
a Mode 3 failure. In this case, the crack tip is represented as an
array of small dislocation on the component’s plane, which are
continuously distributed. The rate of change in the crack growth
is then a function of the accumulated plastic strain at the crack
tip. When the strain exceeds this critical value, the crack
propagates. The change in crack length per stress cycle is then:
() )# 0$%&
'
(*
= 120 (
(11)
While similar to (9), it is noted that the crack growth exponent
is the Dislocation Theory is 2 vs. 4. Inverting, integrating, and
changing terms gives:
𝑁 = −𝑑𝑁P𝑑𝑎 × 𝑎. × Q2𝑎/ − 2$𝑎. R (12)
C. The Combined Mode Fracture Mechanics Model
Equations
We will use the health paradigm where the RUL is the time
from the current health to and health of 1. As noted, in [9]. Then,
by assuming that the fatigue failure is a combination of fracture
modes 1 and 3, we can combine (10) and (12) to give a fracture
mechanics model as:
𝑁 = −𝑑𝑁P𝑑𝑎 × 𝑎. × Q−2 + 2$𝑎. R (13)
Note that in the mechanization of a solution, a0 is the current
health (HI), and dN/da is the inverse derivative of HI (e.g.,
dHI/dt). Hence, the calculation of the derivate is an essential part
of solving for the RUL. Without loss of generality, an unbiased
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estimate of the HI and dHI/dt can be calculated with a Kalman hours. Here it is seen that the hybrid model compares favorably
filter or other State Observer for linear systems. with the existing models. We can quantify the accuracy by
looking at the mean and standard deviation of the error between
D. Calculation of RUL with Two Inputs each model and the ideal RUL. The ideal RUL decreases by 1
Past mechanization of RUL has used state observer (for for each hour of usage.
example, Kalman Filter, or Alpha-Beta-Gama filter) to give an
unbiased estimate or RUL (e.g., N in (13)), and its first and Zooming into the shorter time period (from -300 to -50
second derivative. This innovation expands the measurement hours), the hybrid model performs better than the other
matrix to include inputs for the RUL and uses -1 as the RUL conventional models.
derivative as input. As noted, this extra input, which has not been
reported in earlier works, allows a second input to improve the 50
Error Linear Elastic
observability of the state observer. 40
Error Dislocation
Hybrid Error with -1dRUL/dt

30

20

RUL (Hours)
10

-10

-20

-30

-40
-300 -250 -200 -150 -100 -50
Error (Hours)

Figure 4. Residual Error of the RUL Models

VI. RUL PERFORMANCE

Figure 2. Process flow of RUL Estimation
One measure of accuracy performance is to measure the
mean error and standard deviation of error over the period of
Combining the improved RUL model using a combination
time. Here we see that the (Table I) that both the mean and
(e.g., hybrid model) of fracture mechanics models and the use of
standard error of the RUL is lowest for the hybrid model.
a second RUL observable as -1 for dRUL/dt significantly
improve the accuracy of the prediction. Figure 3 shows a TABLE I. STATISTICAL COMPARISON OF THREE MODELS
comparison of models.
Model Mean Error StD of Error
1000
RUL Linear Elastic
RUL Dislocation
Linear Elastic Model 2.44 hours 18.22 hours
900 Hybrid RUL with -1dRUL/dt
Ideal
Dislocation Model -11.68 hours 14.00 hours
800

700
Hybrid Model -1.96 hours 10.72 hours

600 This simplified performance metric does not adequately

Estimate RUL

500
capture the dynamics and complexity of the propagation of the
RUL over time. Therefore, a more satisfactory metric was given
400
in [8], where Dr. Coble introduces the concept of monotonicity
300 and trendability as RUL performance metrics.
200 Monotonicity is usually adopted to state the underlying
100
positive or negative trend of a series of health indicators. It is
also used to evaluate the fitness of the extracted health indicator
for RUL prediction. In [8], monotonicity can be measured given
0
-700 -600 -500 -400 -300 -200 -100 0
Remaining Useful Life (Hours)
by
Figure 3. Comparison of RUL Model.
æ h+ h- ö
I monotonicity =mean ç indicator - indicator ÷
Note that on this fault, which is a high-speed bearing, both è n -1 n -1 ø
(14)
the Linear Elastic and Dislocation models overshot ideal RUL
from -600 to -300 hours. The hybrid model is much closer to the Where n is the number of observations in a particular
ideal RUL. This is due to the extra observable input of -1 for history, the monotonicity of a series of RUL is given by the
dRUL/dt. Figure 4 compares the performance from -300 to 50

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average difference of the fraction of positive (h+indicator) and
negative (h-indicator) derivatives for each RUL estimate.
Alternatively, trendability is defined to indicate the degree
to which a series of RUL have the same underlying shape and
can be described by the same functional form. In [8], trendability
is given by the smallest linear correlation across a series RUL
series as,
I trendability = min ( rcorrcoef ) (15)
Initially, trendability was characterized by comparing the
fraction of positive first and second derivatives in a series of
health indicators. It should have a different functional form
compared with (14). Even though (15) is an available measure
of trendability, it cannot form the trend over the time horizon of
the RUL, as the RUL prediction is a time-series regression
problem. In consideration of the trendability meaning, a new
measure for trendability is proposed in this paper as,
-
N i*
H tw - H twj*
I trendability =
N TW
where TW means the size of a given time window. is the
average value of RUL in the ith time window. Hi*TW is then the
corresponding values in the adjacent time window. NTW indicates
the total number of time windows. The numerator in (16)
indicates the number of negative values from the comparison of
average health indicators in each two adjacent time windows
among NTW.
The performance metrics (namely, monotonicity and
trendability) compare the three different RUL extracted from
different models. The results are listed in Table 2. Here we see
that the monotonicity and trendability from the hybrid method
show better performance than the linear elastic or dislocation
methods. This is because the hybrid method can obtain greater
values of monotonicity and trendability, which means the RUL
from the hybrid method is more monotonic and trendable, and
hence, higher accuracy.
Table II. compares the RUL performance (monotonicity
and trendability) of different models
TABLE II. TABLE 1 COMPARISON OF MONOTONICITY AND
TRENDABILITY OF DIFFERENT RUL MODELS
MODLE HI from HI from
linear elastic dislocation
method method
MONOTONICITY 0.5647 0.5528
TRENDABILITY 0.7857 0.7810
From (16), the trendability value is related to the time
window. In Table II, the time window is set to 20. To stress the
variation impacted by the time window, the time window is
changed from 10 hours to 200 by 10 increments in each step; the
results are shown in Figure 5. As can be seen, the hybrid method
always shows a higher trendability value compared with the
contending methods.
Figure 5. Trendability of Contending RUL Models
Presented is a physics-based modeling of a high fatigue
remaining useful life (RUL) algorithm. This model-based
(16) approach has the advantage of not needing extensive training
Hi*TW from exemplars/fault data sets, as it is based on the relationship
processes noise of a nominal component and the rate of change
of component over time. Three models were compared: the
linear elastic model, a dislocation theory-based model, and a
hybrid model, which combines both the linear elastics and
dislocation model. It was hypothesized that due to the complex
shape of the component (e.g., a gears/bearing) that fractures due
to fatigue may have multiple propagation modes (Mode 1 and
Mode 3). Further, it was hypothesized that the rate of change of
the RUL should be -1 (e.g., the RUL decrements by one hour for
each hour of life that is consumed). Using accuracy,
monotonicity and trendability as metrics, the performance of
these models was compared.
In summary, the hybrid model (combination of the linear
elastic and dislocation theory models, with a secondary
observable) gives a much better estimate of RUL as the fault
initially propagates. Furthermore, as the RUL decreases, the
extra observable reduces the standard deviation of the RUL
estimate over other models and improves both the monotonicity
and trendability of the RUL. This improved estimate and
reduced variance allow maintainer and operators to schedule
their assets better to improve availability and increase revenue.
HI from
hybrid ACKNOWLEDGMENT
method
We would like to thank Dr. Kai Goebel, VP, Director of
0.8495 Intelligent Systems Lab at Parc. Dr. Goebel's insight that failure
0.9286
may have complex modes and that combining models may
improve the RUL performance was the start of this effort.
REFERENCES
[1] P. Vercer, M. Kreidl, R. Smit, "Condition Indicators for Gearbox
Condition Monitoring Systems," Acta Polytechnica, vol. 45, no. 6, 2005.
[2] E. Bechhoefer, A. Bernhard, "A Generalized Process for Optimal
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