C06-23: Vehicle Component Prognostics in a Vibration/Shock Environment
Objective:
Demonstrate predictive capabilities for the remaining life of vehicle components through the use of onboard data collection and processing.
Background:
The basic concept of prognostics is well understood by most all engineers. The basic premise of predicting life based upon the history of loads that a product has seen is so universally accepted, that most engineers do not understand why it has not been implemented. Few understand the underlying fundamental issue of appropriate data, data collection, data reduction, and data processing that is required before any damage assessment and damage accumulation analysis can be started. Unfortunately prognostics gets a bad name because it is viewed as a solution to a general problem, when the problem it is expect to solve has not been defined or broken down into enough detail.Prognostics does not yet have a proven track record outside of the laboratory. There is a need for many different case studies using real products in a real environments to convince doubters and pessimists that the concept can be economically employed in the real world.
Approach:
This project will rely upon the initial data collection demonstration performed on test vehicles at the Aberdeen Test Center (ATC). The vehicle on-board data processing and recording will be performed using an nCode data collection box. The box has the capabilities to record and process multiple sensors, strain gages, as well as access to vehicle engine bus. The project will identify a couple of key vehicle components and track their load history (vibration and shock) as the vehicles are driven over the various Army test tracks that simulate the various terrain a military vehicle would be expected to traverse. These test tracks are driving simulations, but closer to the real environment than if done on a stationary servo-hydraulic driving simulator. From the captured load history, damage accumulation will be calculated and compared to any actual failures.