Change detection for improved maintenance notification

Abstract

HUMS (Health and Usage Monitoring Systems) provide enhanced safety and availability by alerting maintenance personnel when components (shaft/gears/bearings) have degraded or become damaged. Proactive maintenance ensures that a degraded component will not fail in flight. Often, the damage is from high cycle fatigue or other relatively slow degradation processes. However, some events, such as maintenance, result in a step-change in the component's health. While high cycle fatigue degradation can be trended, a step-change in component health presents a challenge. This paper describes the development of two methods for step-change detection. These methods would allow the automated capture of maintenance or other events resulting in a step-change in component health.