A Study on Fault Detection of a Turboshaft Engine Using Neural Network Method

It is not easy to monitor and identify all engine faults and conditions using conventional fault detection approaches like the GPA (Gas Path Analysis) method due to the nature and complexity of the faults. This study therefore focuses on a model based diagnostic method using Neural Network algorithms proposed for fault detection on a turbo shaft engine (PW 206C) selected as the power plant for a tilt rotor type unmanned aerial vehicle (Smart UAV). The model based diagnosis should be performed by a precise performance model. However component maps for the performance model were not provided by the engine manufacturer. Therefore they were generated by a new component map generation method, namely hybrid method using system identification and genetic algorithms that identifies inversely component characteristics from limited performance deck data provided by the engine manufacturer. Performance simulations at different operating conditions were performed on the PW206C turbo shaft engine using SIMULINK. In order to train the proposed BPNN (Back Propagation Neural Network), performance data sets obtained from performance analysis results using various implanted component degradations were used. The trained NN system could reasonably detect the faulted components including the fault pattern and quantity of the study engine at various operating conditions.