Method and system for diagnosing a condition of an engine using lubricating fluid analysis
AssigneePratt & Whitney Canada Corp.
InventorsMaurice Jean, Daniel Meilleur
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Methods and systems for diagnosing a condition of an engine based on lubrication fluid analysis are disclosed. One embodiment of the methods comprises: receiving input data representative of a respective geometric parameter and a respective chemical composition for a plurality of particles filtered from a sample of fluid obtained from the engine; generating data representative of a mass of material of a chemical composition category in one or more of the particles; comparing the mass of material of the chemical composition category with reference data; and generating output data representative of a diagnosis of the condition of the engine.
Claims17
A method for diagnosing a condition of an engine, the method comprising:
- obtaining a fluid sample from the engine;
- filtering the fluid sample to obtain a plurality of particles from the fluid sample;
- automatically obtaining, using data acquisition equipment, input data based on the particles obtained from the fluid sample, said input data representative of a respective geometric parameter and a respective chemical composition for the plurality of particles filtered from the fluid sample obtained from the engine;
- using one or more data processors:
- from the input data, generating data representative of a mass of material of a chemical composition category in one or more of the particles by determining an estimate of a mass of the one or more particles based on the one or more respective geometric parameters and the chemical composition category, wherein determining the estimate of the mass of the one or more particles includes computing the estimate of the mass using a volume of the one or more particles of the chemical composition category and a density associated with the chemical composition category;
- comparing the mass of material of the chemical composition category in the one or more particles with reference data, the reference data comprising predefined engine diagnosis rules obtained from a database;
- and
- based on the comparison, generating output data representative of a diagnosis of the condition of the engine.
A method for diagnosing a condition of a gas turbine engine, the method comprising:
- obtaining a sample of used lubricating fluid from the gas turbine engine;
- filtering the sample of used lubricating fluid to obtain a plurality of particles from the sample of used lubricating fluid;
- using the plurality of particles filtered from the sample of used lubricating fluid, generating input data representative of a respective volume and a respective chemical composition for each of the plurality of particles;
- using the input data and a density of a chemical composition category, computing an estimate of a cumulative mass of material of the chemical composition category in the plurality of particles;
- comparing the cumulative mass of material of the chemical composition category with reference data, the reference data comprising predefined engine diagnosis rules obtained from a database;
- and
- based on the comparison, generating output data representative of a diagnosis of the condition of the gas turbine engine.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.