An Approach to the Health Monitoring of a Pumping Unit in an Aircraft Engine Fuel System

Abstract

This paper provides an approach for health monitoring through an early detection of failure modes premises. It is a physics-based model approach that captures the knowledge of the system and its degradations. The component under study is the pumping unit such as those found in aircraft engines fuel systems. First, a complete component analysis is performed to determine its potential degradation and a physics-based relevant component health indicator (CHI) is defined. Then, degradations are modelled and their impacts on the CHI are quantified using an AMESim® physics-based model. Assuming that in-flight measures are available, a model updating is performed and a healthy distribution of the CHI is computed. Eventually, a fault detection algorithm is developed and statistical validation is performed through the computation of key performance indicators (KPI). In parallel, a degradation severity indicator (DSI) is defined and prognostic is performed based on the monitoring of this DSI.