Introduction
The Prognostics and Health Management Consortium (PHMC) is an industry, and government supported research and education consortium within the Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering (CALCE). The mission of the PHM Consortium is to provide basic research and technology on prognostics and health management to members. CALCE has been performing cooperative, industrially focused research on prognostics for approximately eight years with a demonstrated track record of disseminating research results for industrial competitive advantage.
PHM efforts at CALCE are geared towards achieving the following long-term research objectives:
- Provide proven prognostic sensors and in-situ monitoring strategies for cost effectively recording environmental, operational, and performance parameters of new and legacy systems.
- Develop models and algorithms for “health” assessment and prognostics to integrate cost effective prognostics with other technologies (RFID, logistics, and Net-centric databases) for new and legacy systems.
- Build maintenance and logistical support methods that incorporate prognostic outputs.
- Provide solutions to the Can Not Duplicate (CND), No Fault Found(NFF), No Trouble Found (NTF), and intermittent failure problem.
- Provide techniques for self-healing and system reconfiguration based on prognostic outputs.
- Document best practices in the use of prognostic outputs for future designs and qualification planning.
- Develop methodologies to assess the return-on-investment (RoI) opportunities of prognostics.
CALCE's interdisciplinary PHM Consortium team consists of faculty in electronics, reliability, materials, and mechanical engineering. This team of 20 professors and research scientists supported by approximately 30 Ph.D. and 20 M.S. candidates has authored over 40 internationally acclaimed textbooks and well over 850 research publications relevant to electronics reliability. These publications have been in the forefront of the development and implementation of Physics-of-Failure (PoF) approaches to electronics reliability and life cycle prediction, including Physics-of-Failure (PoF).
The resources available to the PHM Consortium include the CALCE Testing and Failure Analysis (TSFA) laboratory , one of the largest and most extensively equipped electronics failure analysis facilities in the world, and proprietary CALCE-developed virtual qualification software for electronic products.
What are the PHMC research objectives?
The Consortium's research goal is to develop the technologies, techniques, and
methodologies to enable the conduct of prognostics of products and systems containing
electronics. To meet this goal, the Consortium's core research objectives are:
- Provide proven prognostic sensors and in-situ monitoring strategies for cost effectively recording environmental, operational, and performance parameters of new and legacy systems.
- Provide proven models and algorithms for "health" assessment and prognostics.
- Provide methods to integrate cost-effective prognostics with other technologies (RFID, logistics, Net-centric databases) for new and legacy systems.
- Provide maintenance and logistical support methods that incorporate prognostic outputs.
- Provide a solution to the CND, NFF, NTF, intermittent problem.
- Provide techniques for self-healing and system reconfiguration based on prognostic outputs.
- Document best practices in the use of prognostic outputs for future designs and qualification planning.
- Provide software to assess the return-on-investment opportunities of prognostics.
How is research conducted and reviewed within the PHMC?
The PHMC has defined a set of research projects aligned with its long-term
objectives in the area of PHM of electronics products and systems. The projects are planned in one-year increments and progress is reviewed by the membership at semiannual meetings.
PHMC members are encouraged to actively participate in research projects.
What are the deliverables of the PHMC?
The PHMC deliverables are the results from the research projects. Each project
defines its own deliverables, which take the form of algorithms,
methodologies, experimental data, case studies, and/or technical reports. All
of the Consortium's results are disseminated via the PHMC website. All PHMC
members share equally in the results of all the research projects.
How much does it cost to join?
The annual membership fee is $35K.
What portion of a member organization has access to the PHMC work?
PHMC memberships are site-specific (where a "site" usually refers
to a particular geographic location).
When do I have to pay the membership fee?
Membership fees are payable prior to accessing the Consortium’s resources. The payment allows a company to be a member for one year.
Will the CALCE Electronic Product and Systems Consortium continue to do PHM projects?
The CALCE Electronic Products and Systems Consortium has not performed research projects
in the PHM area since October 2006. Organizations that are interested in PHM research are encouraged
to join the new consortium.
What is PHMC's relationship with the CALCE Electronic Products and Systems Consortium?
PHMC is a spin-off of the CALCE EPSC, and
will remain strongly associated. The research projects
within PHMC and CALCE EPSC will be planned so that there is no duplication of effort.
How to Join
New members must sign a membership agreement and return it to PHMC with the annual fee. The membership agreement can be downloaded below. If you are already a member of the CALCE Electronic Products and Systems Consortium, you do not need to fill out another membership agreement; you only need to pay the PHMC annual fee. Please contact Michael Osterman, 301-405-8023, osterman@calce.umd.edu, if you need assistance with this membership agreement.
Get a Password
Upon membership status, users may register for a password to gain access to the members-only content of the website. If you are currently a member and would like to register for a password, please click here.