Extreme prognostics for remaining useful life analysis of composite structures

The procedure of fatigue damage accumulation in composite structures is still unknown and depends on several parameters such as type and frequency of loading, stacking sequence and material properties. Additionally, the nonhomogeneous and anisotropic nature of composites result to a stochastic activation of the different failure mechanisms and make the estimation of remaining useful life (RUL) very complex but interesting task. Data driven probabilistic methodologies have found increasing use the last decade and provide a platform for reliable estimations of RUL utilizing condition monitoring (CM) data. However, the fatigue life of a specific composite structure has a quite significant scatter, with specimens that either underperform or outperform. These specimens are often referred as outliers and the estimation of their RUL is challenging. This study proposes a new RUL probabilistic model, the Extreme Non-Homogenous Hidden Semi Markov Model (ENHHSMM) which is an extension of the Non-Homogenous Hidden Semi Markov Model (NHHSMM). The ENHHSMM uses dynamic diagnostic measures, which are estimated based on the training and testing CM data and adapts dynamically the trained parameters of the NHHSMM. The available CM data are acoustic emission data recorded throughout fatigue testing of open-hole carbon–epoxy specimens. RUL estimations from the ENHHSMM and NHHSMM are compared. The ENHHSMM is concluded as the preferable option since it provides more accurate outlier prognostics.