A Dynamical Systems Approach to Diagnostics and Prognostics

The concept of phase space warping is used to develop a general method for damage evolution tracking and failure prediction. After outlining the basic theory and describing its algorithmic implementation, experimen- tal results are presented for an nonlinear oscillator in which a crack propagates to complete fracture. Our method is shown to give real- time estimates of the current "damage" state, and remaining useful life is accurately predicted well in advance of actual failure.