Keynote speech: Turbofan engine system diagnostics, Prognostics and Health Management — Challenges and opportunities

Abstract

Condition Based Maintenance (CBM), Prognostics and Health Management (PHM), Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM), and the analytics supporting all these catchy and sounds-too-good-to-be-true after-market service solutions, such as Big Data, Predictive Service, have become so loud it is literally impossible to ignore them. The big driver, of course, is customer demands. These days, customers have a lot of options; so unless the OEM provides the best reliability, product availability, coupled with lowest overall cost-to-own, you are not going to win over your customers. Commercial engines are no exceptions to this trend. Actually, due to the catastrophic nature and traumatizing media impacts to the public (not only the victims and their families) after jet engine failures, the reliability/safety requirements on commercial jet engines far exceed those of ground transportation systems. The giants of the industry, with names such as GE, Pratt Whitney, Rolls Royce, are all rushing to develop, launch, and market their own CBM / PHM service solutions. American Airline, the largest airline in the world, is now demanding “contracts on wing#x201D;, i.e., paying for flight hours, not for leasing / purchasing the engines. This will be even more true when everyone wants “contracts on wing#x201D;, which in the speaker's view is not that far away from becoming reality. “Contracts on wing” solutions truly push OEM's to provide real-time, cost-effective engine PHM solutions; and there is no other way around it. This speech will discuss the burning PHM needs & technical challenges the commercial engine industry is facing, and touch base on some engine PHM R&D activities.