Intelligent condition-based engine/equipment management system

• US 6,871,160 B2
• Filed: 09/05/2002
• Issued: 03/22/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 09/08/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Scientific Monitoring, Inc.
• Inventors: Jaw, Link C.
• Primary Examiner(s): ASSOUAD, PATRICK J
• Application Number:
  US10/237,407
• Publication Number:
  US 20030120402A1
• Time in Patent Office: 929 Days
• Field of Search: 702/182, 702/183, 702/184, 702/185, 702/33, 702/34, 702/35, 702/36, 700/108, 701/29, 701/30
• US Class Current: 702/182
• CPC Class Codes: G01M 15/00 Testing of engines

Abstract

Health management of machines, such as gas turbine engines and industrial equipment, offers the potential benefits of efficient operations and reduced cost of ownership. Machine health management goes beyond monitoring operating conditions, it assimilates available information and makes the most favorable decisions to maximize the value of the machine. These decisions are usually related to predicted failure modes and their corresponding failure time, recommended corrective actions, repair/maintenance actions, and planning and scheduling options. Hence machine health management provides a number of functions that are interconnected and cooperative to form a comprehensive health management system. While these interconnected functions may have different names (or terminology) in different industries, an effective health management system should include four primary functions: sensory input processing, fault identification, failure/life prediction, planning and scheduling. These four functions form the foundation of the method of ICEMS (Intelligent Condition-based Engine/Equipment Management System). To facilitate information processing and decision making, these four functions may be repartitioned and regrouped, such as for network based computer software designed for health management of sophisticated machinery.

Claims

1. A comprehensive condition monitoring and maintenance management system comprising the steps of:

a) acquiring measured data relating to at least one part or piece of equipment;

b) either identifying any faults present in the at least one part or piece of equipment using the acquired data;

or

c) identifying any potential failures, or useful lifespan, of the at least one part or piece of equipment using the acquired data; and

d) planning and scheduling maintenance decisions or actions using any faults identified above, any failures predicted above, the lifespan predicted above, and cost of ownership considerations for the at least one part or piece of equipment, wherein the cost of ownership considerations uses if the engine is new, a calculated total cost of ownership;

a calculated acquisition cost per operating time (or cycle), since new;

a calculated the operation support cost per operating time (or cycle), since new;

a calculated scrap cost per operating time (or cycle), since new;

the maintenance cost per operating time (or cycle), since new;

a calculated risk cost per operating time (or cycle), since new; and

finally a summed all costs per operating time (or cycle), since new;

however if the engine is used, after the cost estimation is calculated, the operational support cost is calculated;

the support cost per operating time (or cycle), since last overhaul, is calculated;

the scrap cost per operating time (or cycle), since last overhaul;

the maintenance cost per operating time (or cycle), since last overhaul, is calculated;

the risk cost per operating time (or cycle), since last overhaul, is calculated; and

finally, all costs per operating time (or cycle), since last overhaul are summed.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the step of acquiring measure data further includes the step of filtering and smoothing the acquired data after acquisition.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the step of fault identification further includes the step of identifying an abnormality in the acquired data and monitoring the abnormality until such time as the abnormality reaches a predetermined threshold that defines a fault condition and finally signaling that a fault condition has occurred.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein the step of identifying a potential failure, or useful lifespan, of the at least one part or piece of equipment further includes the steps of:

a) identifying known faults in the at least one part or piece of equipment;

b) modeling the fault to failure growth for the known faults;

c) calculating the failure lifespan for the at least one part or piece of equipment;

d) tracking the usage/damage of the at least one part or piece of equipment; and

e) calculating the safe usage lifespan using the failure lifespan and the tracked usage/damage of the at least one part or piece of equipment.