DESIGN IDEAS
SMART SENSORS MONITOR AEROSPACE BEARINGS
Jon Everett of The Barden Corporation explains how smart sensor technology is helping to estimate remaining useful aerospace bearing life
Actuator motor bearings require high
reliability, below; and Clean Sky 2 project aims to improve aircraft safety, bottom
rotation speeds increase forweight reduction, expectations of the bearing performance are increased. Currently, bearingwear ismitigatedmainly by applying preventativemaintenance. Implementation of healthmonitoring on the bearingswill lead to a higher availability of the starter- generators, alongwith optimisation of the maintenance tasks. By applying diagnostic and prognostic
tools, partners on the Clean Sky 2 programme hope to estimate the safe lifetime for a bearing, aswell as accurate and timely fault diagnosis. Thiswill enable operators to planmaintenancemore effectively than is currently possible. At present, the bearing technical
specification has been agreed and sensor choice defined. The next steps include developing appropriate systemarchitectures and specific software algorithms for data analysis, diagnosis and the estimation of remaining useful life.
SATELLITE APPLICATIONS Another key growthmarket for Barden UK is satellites and space applications. Traditionally, building and launching a satellitewas amulti-million pound investment, butmore recently, the size and cost of a satellite have reduced. One area Barden UK has been heavily
In aerospace applications, high precision rolling bearings are exposed to extreme temperatures, demanding load profiles and high speeds and these bearings are becomingmore specialised in order to cope with greater payloads andmore sophisticated aircraft control systems. Over the years, Barden has supplied bearings for a variety of auxiliary aircraft systems including gyroscopes, actuators, starter generators and hydraulic pumps.
PREDICTIVE MAINTENANCE With the current trend towardsmore predictivemaintenance, there is an associated increase in the use of combined bearing and smart sensor technologies to provide a basis formaking predictions. Barden has always pushed the boundaries of bearing performance to their limits and the use of sensor technologiesmay enable these boundaries to be pushed even further. The key is to find newways of ensuring increased
‘ Smart
sensors help predict bearing life John Everett
reliabilitywithout havingmultiple redundant systems on the aircraft. Barden is currently involved in Clean Sky 2,
’
a European research programme that began inMarch 2016. The aimof this two-year project is to identify the safe lifetime of engine starter/generator bearings for aircraft by applying diagnostics and prognostics. The ultimate objective is to improve the safety of aircraft and reducemaintenance costs. Starters/generators are a key part in
aircraft engines and operate under exacting conditionswith bearings being fundamental to this application. As starter/generator
involved in is the reactionwheel of a satellite. A reactionwheel is a type of flywheel used primarily by spacecraft and satellites for altitude controlwithout using fuel for rockets or other reaction devices. They are particularly usefulwhen the spacecraftmust be rotated by very small degrees. Theymay also reduce themass fraction needed for fuel. This is accomplished by equipping the satellitewith an electricmotor attached to a flywheel which,when its rotation speed is changed, causes the satellite to begin to counter- rotate proportionately through conservation of angularmomentum. The failure of one ormore reactionwheels
can cause a satellite to lose its ability to maintain position and thus potentially cause amission failure. Therefore, the reliability of reactionwheel bearings is absolutely critical. The bearings are customengineeredwith high surface finish requirements and visual appearance of the raceways. The bearings are also assembled in cleanroomconditions using special handling techniques and are supplied to the customerwith full data traceability.
Read more on bearing monitoring on our website at
https://goo.gl/s2F9CL or scan the QR Code
April 2017 /// Environmental Engineering /// 7
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