Research

Unexpected failure of mission- and safety-critical engineered systems (e.g., power plant, transportation, manufacturing facility) can lead to enormous human and financial losses. To avoid the failure, during design, various uncertainties in materials, geometry, and environmental and operational loading conditions must be carefully incorporated, while, during operation, the health of the systems should be in-situ monitored so that risk associated with system failure can be evaluated and managed properly.

To achieve the goals, the laboratory for System Health & Reliability (SHR) put endless efforts in the area of Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) and Model Validation and Verification (V&V). More specifically, the PHM consists of sensor data acquisition, preprocessing, feature extraction, health index definition, fault diagnosis and prognosis, and decision making. The SHR lab is an ideal place for multidisciplinary research by combining mechanical engineering with other disciplines such as electrical and electronic engineering and computer science. Two of main research topics are as follows.

Fault Diagnosis and Prognosis of Engineered Systems

• • Sensor network design

  • Data processing

  • Health reasoning (feature extraction)

  • Model-based and data-driven PHM approaches

Model Verification and Validation

• • Uncertainty characterization in input model variables

  • Statistical model validation by optimization and Bayesian theory

  • Reliability-based design optimization