An adaptive probabilistic data-driven methodology for prognosis of the fatigue life of composite structures

Data driven probabilistic methodologies have found increasing use the last decade and provide a platform for the remaining useful life (RUL) prediction of composite structures utilizing health-monitoring data. Of particular interest is the RUL prediction of composite structures that either underperform or outperform due to unexpected phenomena that might occur during their service life. These composite structures are referred as outliers and the prediction of their RUL is a challenge. This study addresses this challenge by proposing a new data-driven model; the Adaptive Non-Homogenous Hidden Semi Markov Model (ANHHSMM), which is an extension of the NHHSMM. The ANHHSMM uses diagnostic measures, which are estimated based on the training and testing data, and it adapts the trained parameters of the NHHSMM. The training data set consists of acoustic emission data collected from open-hole carbon–epoxy specimens, subjected to fatigue loading, while the testing data set consists of acoustic emission data collected from specimens, subjected to fatigue and in-situ impact loading, which can be considered as an unseen event for the training process. ANHHSMM provides better predictions in comparison to the NHHSMM for all the cases, demonstrating its capability to adapt to unexpected phenomena and integrate unforeseen data to the prognostics course.