Crack level estimation approach for planetary gearbox based on simulation signal and GRA

The planetary gearbox is a critical mechanism in helicopter transmission systems. A crack level estimation methodology for planetary gearbox has been devised by integrating a physical model for simulation signal generation, a statistic algorithm for feature selection and a grey relational analysis (GRA) algorithm for damage level estimation. The physical model is used to generate simulation datasets for developing and evaluating the diagnostic scheme that will be further calibrated with real world test data during application. The proposed method was calibrated with historical test data and then validated with real-time test data. The estimation results coincide with the actual test records, showing the effectiveness and accuracy of this method in providing a novel way for more accurate health monitoring and condition prediction. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.