Date of Award

1-1-2013

Document Type

Open Access Dissertation

Department

Electrical Engineering

Sub-Department

Electrical Engineering

First Advisor

Yong-June Shin

Abstract

For an efficient maintenance of a diverse fleet of air- and rotorcraft, effective condition based maintenance (CBM) must be established based on rotating components monitored vibration signals.

In this dissertation, we present theory and applications of polyspectral signal processing techniques for condition monitoring of critical components in the AH-64D helicopter tail rotor drive train system. Currently available vibration-monitoring tools are mostly built around auto- and cross-power spectral analysis which have limited performance in detecting frequency correlations higher than second order. Studying higher order correlations and their Fourier transforms, higher order spectra, provides more information about the vibration signals which helps in building more accurate diagnostic models of the mechanical system. Based on higher order spectral analysis, different signal processing techniques are developed to assess health conditions of different critical rotating-components in the AH-64D helicopter drive-train.

Based on cross-bispectrum, quadratic nonlinear transfer function is presented to model second order nonlinearity in a drive-shaft running between the two hanger bearings. Then, quadratic-nonlinearity coupling coefficient between frequency harmonics of the rotating shaft is used as condition metric to study different seeded shaft faults compared to baseline case, namely: shaft misalignment, shaft imbalance, and combination of shaft misalignment and imbalance. The proposed quadratic-nonlinearity metric shows better capabilities in distinguishing the four studied shaft settings than the conventional linear coupling based on cross-power spectrum.

We also develop a new concept of Quadratic-Nonlinearity Power-Index spectrum, QNLPI(f), that can be used in signal detection and classification, based on bicoherence spectrum. The proposed QNLPI(f) is derived as a projection of the three-dimensional bicoherence spectrum into two-dimensional spectrum that quantitatively describes how much of the mean square power at certain frequency f is generated due to nonlinear quadratic interaction between different frequency components. The proposed index, QNLPI(f), can be used to simplify the study of bispectrum and bicoherence signal spectra. It also inherits useful characteristics from the bicoherence such as high immunity to additive Gaussian noise, high capability of nonlinear-systems identifications, and amplification invariance. The quadratic-nonlinear power spectral density PQNL(f) and percentage of quadratic nonlinear power PQNLP are also introduced based on the QNLPI(f). Concept of the proposed indices and their computational considerations are discussed first using computer generated data, and then applied to real-world vibration data to assess health conditions of different rotating components in the drive train including drive-shaft, gearbox, and hanger bearing faults. The QNLPI(f) spectrum enables us to gain more details about nonlinear harmonic generation patterns that can be used to distinguish between different cases of mechanical faults, which in turn helps to gaining more diagnostic/prognostic capabilities.

Rights

© 2013, Mohammed Ahmed Hassan Mohammed

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