Prognostic Analysis of the Tactical Quiet Generator

The U.S. Army needs prognostic analysis of mission-critical equipment to enable condition-based maintenance before failure. ORNL has developed and patented prognostic technology that quantifies condition change from noisy, multi-channel, time-serial data. This report describes an initial application of ORNL's prognostic technology to the Army's Tactical Quiet Generator (TQG), which is designed to operate continuously at 10 kW. Less-than-full power operation causes unburned fuel to accumulate on internal components, thereby degrading operation and eventually leading to failure. The first objective of this work was identification of easily-acquired, process-indicative data. Two types of appropriate data were identified, namely output-electrical current and voltage, plus tri-axial acceleration (vibration). The second objective of this work was data quality analysis to avoid the garbage-in-garbage-out syndrome. Quality analysis identified more than 10% of the current data as having consecutive values that are constant, or that saturate at an extreme value. Consequently, the electrical data were not analyzed further. The third objective was condition-change analysis to indicate operational stress under non-ideal operation and machine degradation in proportion to the operational stress. Application of ORNL's novel phase-space dissimilarity measures to the vibration power quantified the rising operational stress in direct proportion to the less-than-full-load power. We conclude that ORNL'smore » technology is an excellent candidate to meet the U.S. Army's need for equipment prognostication.« less