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IEEE Reliability Society Newsletter Vol. 56, No. 3. August 2010 |
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Table of Content Front page: Society News: Feature Article: Chapter Activities:
Technical Activities: Announcements:
Security and Privacy Magazine:
Call for Papers
Links:
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New Special Section of the Reliability Society Newsletter: Prognostic Health Management for High-Reliability in Fielded Systems Pradeep Lall, T. Walter Professor and Center Director, CAVE3, Auburn University
In the recent past, Prognostic Health Management (PHM) has emerged as a key enabling technology to provide an early warning of failure. The early warning of impending-failure can be very valuable for prevention of catastrophic failure in high reliability systems. PHM has found applications in Digital electronics, Automobiles, Computer and telecom industry, Cloud Computing, Manufacturing, Aerospace and Military systems, Power Smart Grid and Green Energy Systems, LED Lighting. High reliability systems may require continued operation over a prolonged operational life with minimal downtime. This section of the Reliability Newsletter is a new addition in recognition of the emergent role of prognostics health management in the general field of reliability. The IEEE reliability society is placing an increased focus on PHM with two sponsored conferences including IEEE International Conference on Prognostics and Health Management to be held on June 20-23, 2011, in Denver, Colorado, at the Hyatt Regency Denver Tech Center (http://www.phmconf.org/) and the Prognostics and System Health Management Conference to be held on May 24-25, 2011, in Shenzhen, China (http://www.cityu.edu.hk/phmc/PHM2011.htm). The call-for abstracts is open for both conferences. PHM is the logical evolution of reliability methods for system health management and assessment of accrued damage. Traditional accelerated test methods focus on the accelerated of the dominant failure mechanisms in the system under anticipated operational stresses. This may be often done by exposing systems or more often components or subsystems to single stresses or combination of stresses. However, the field environment may often be different from that anticipated and thus the expected life can be vastly different from that anticipated based on the design test profile. PHM techniques may enable the management of the true health of a product and the progression of underlying damage to assure proper function in the deployed environment. Early warnings of problems within a product may be used to forecast planned-maintenance and assess the potential for life extensions. Application of the capability to identify impending failure and trigger repair and replacement can find uses in various fields, which researchers are just beginning to just explore. Real time decision-support for mission safety, condition based (predictive) maintenance, re-deployment, and logistical planning may be realized using PHM based methods for assessment of the operational readiness, assessment of accrued damage and residual life in the intended environment. The future may witness the realization of self-cognizant systems capable of assessing their own real-time performance under actual usage conditions and adaptively trigger risk-mitigation actions to virtually eliminate unplanned failures. The increasing popularity of the pay as you go business model where consumers lease products and equipment renters remain responsible for maintenance continues to motivate the need for prognostic health management. In this service oriented model, the equipment renters may plan for the cost of servicing and fixing equipment based on actual usage and not on an anticipated maintenance regimen. Even the best accelerated life testing leaves some uncertainty in reliability predictions that PHM can help mitigate. Lastly run to failure testing might be impracticable, or prohibitively expensive for some systems, again PHM can help address these constraints and achieve the necessary reliabilities. Given the potential application for PHM and the possibilities, too many to mention in this introductory article, one can only imagine how dominant this area may grow in the years to come.
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