Gas path debris monitoring-a 21st century PHM tool

In order to achieve the goal of engine health management necessary for the Prognostics and Health Management (PHM), a suite of advanced monitoring tools is required. These tools must have the capability to monitor and diagnose different aspects of the engine´s health so that the combined, or fused, data and information from the tools provide an accurate picture of the current and predicted engine condition. Gas path debris monitoring is one of the tools that can be used to achieve this objective. It can be applied to the intake and exhaust of the propulsion system so that gas path component integrity can be monitored. Although the concept of gas path debris monitoring has been the subject of research and development over several years, it is still considered a novel and as yet immature technology for engine health management. The development and demonstration work during this time indicates that it has the potential to provide early detection and diagnostic capability for a range of engine faults,including foreign object ingestion. This technology, in the form of the Engine Distress Monitoring System (EDMS) and Ingested Debris Monitoring System (IDMS), was selected for the JSF seeded fault engine test program. The objective of this program was to test and evaluate the capabilities of a range of potential PHM tools using a comprehensive set of seeded engine faults and conditions. These tests have provided a clear indication of the capability of gas path debris monitoring to be a useful tool for PHM. This paper provides a detailed summary of the EDMS and IDMS results from the seeded fault tests