Proceedings of ASME TURBO EXPO 2000:
Land, Sea, and Air
AN EVALUATION OF ENGINE FAULTS DIAGNOSTICS USING ARTIFICIAL NEURAL
NETWORKS
Pong-Jeu Lu
Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
National Cheng Kung University
Tainan, Taiwan
pjlu@mail.ncku.edu.tw
Tzu-Cheng Hsu
Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
National Cheng Kung University
Tainan, Taiwan
tjshyu@mail.ncku.edu.tw
KEYWORDS: Engine Condition Monitoring, Fault Isolation, Artificial Neural Networks
ABSTRACT
Application of artificial neural network(ANN)-based method to
perform engine condition monitoring and fault diagnosis is evaluated.
Back-propagation, feedforward neural nets are employed for
constructing engine diagnostic networks. Noise-contained training
and testing data are generated using an influence coefficient matrix
and the data scatters. The results indicate that under high-level noise
conditions ANN fault diagnosis can only achieve a 50-60% success
rate. For situations where sensor scatters are comparable to those of
the normal engine operation, the success rates for both 4-input and 8-
input ANN diagnoses achieve high scores which satisfy the minimum
90% requirement. It is surprising to find that the success rate of the 4-
input diagnosis is almost as good as that of the 8-input. Although the
ANN-based method possesses certain capability in resisting the
influence of input noise, it is found that a preprocessor that can
perform sensor data validation is of paramount importance. Auto-
associative neural network(AANN) is introduced to reduce the noise
level contained. It is shown that the noise can be greatly filtered to
result in a higher success rate of diagnosis. This AANN data
validation preprocessor can also serve as an instant trend detector
which greatly improves the current smoothing methods in trend
detection. It is concluded that ANN-based fault diagnostic method is
of great potential for future use. However, further investigations using
actual engine data have to be done to validate the present findings.
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May 8-11, 2000—Munich, Germany
2000-GT-0029
Ming-Chuan Zhang
Department of Jet Propulsion and Power
Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Beijing, China
Jin Zhang
Department of Jet Propulsion and Power
Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Beijing, China
cdq-rfs@263.net
INTRODUCTION
Model-based engine condition monitoring approach(Urban, 1972;
Urban and Vopolni, 1992; Doel, 1994a, 1994b) has not yet been
generally accepted as a routinely-used tool in the practical
applications. The engine condition monitoring(ECM) systems
currently in use in the airlines can be divided into two categories,
namely, the limited and the expanded systems. The limited(3 or 4-
input parameters) system suffers from the unidentifiability problem,
making performance trending and fault diagnosis rely mainly on the
check-up work using limited available fingerprint plots. Although
strict Kalman filter type analysis can be performed for the expanded(8
or more input parameters) system, the analysis calls for specially
trained experts who usually are not available in airlines.
Neural network-based approach circumvents all the above
fundamental difficulties and emerges as a potential tool to carry out
engine condition monitoring and modular fault isolation. The use of
artificial neural network(ANN) approach(Zedda and Singh, 1998;
Whitehead et al., 1990; Eustace and Merrington, 1995; Roemer and
Atkinson, 1997; Cifald and Chokani, 1998) for performance trending
and fault diagnosis could be simple and efficient provided the network
is properly trained. This advantage allows performance analysis be
automated and, as pursued further, can in the future make condition
monitoring a daily or even flight-to-flight routine. Safety engine
operation and effective on-condition maintenance can thus be
1 Copyright © 2000 by ASME
 guaranteed on a firmer basis. The present work aims at exploring the ∂E ( n )
∆wij (n ) = η ( − ) + α∆wij ( n − 1) (1)
ability and limitations associated with the ANN-based engine fault ∂wij
diagnostic approach. These findings will be valuable as real engine
data are to be used as the input in the future.
Training and testing data are supplied by Pratt and
in which, E is the targeted error, η and α are the learning rate and
Whitney(P&W) using influence coefficient matrix pertaining to
PW4000 engines. The standard deviations obtained from various data momentum constant respectively. In the following applications, both
retrieving methods are used to model the data scatter. Simulated data η and α are kept within [0, 1] and the appropriate values are
using this noise model and the influence coefficient matrix are determined by trial-and-error method.
generated. Back-propagation(BP) neural networks(Werbos, 1974;
Haykin, 1994) are trained and tested using the simulated data. The
performance of both 4-input and 8-input BP diagnostic networks is Training and Testing Fault Samples
evaluated. The influence of data scatter on the diagnostic success rate The quality of the training data holds a central position for the
is carefully assessed. It will be demonstrated in the present ANN diagnosis to be successful. For the present engine problem the
investigation that both 4-input and 8-input BP networks can achieve input parameters are the deltas defined as the percentage difference of
high success rates, exceeding the minimum 90% requirement, in the measured data to its baseline value. Normally these deltas are on
diagnosing the selected 15 engine faults. Although ANN-based fault the order of a few percent which can easily be contaminated by
diagnostic methods have certain capabilities in resisting data random data scatter. How to make a correct diagnostic judgment
contamination while making correct diagnostic judgment, a sensor under noisy or even incomplete input data situation becomes the main
data validation preprocessor is still considered important for the issue to be addressed in this work.
present method to be useful in the practical application.
To improve the input data quality, a preliminary auto-associative
neural network(AANN) analysis is proposed for noise-filtering Table 1 Analyzed Faults
(Romer, 1998; Kramer 1991, 1992; Napolitano et al., 1996; Mattern et Description Type of Fault Abbreviation
al.1997, 1998). It is shown that significant improvement can be 1 HPC Performance Loss Type 1 HPC
achieved when auto-associative filter is introduced to augment the 2 HPT Performance Loss Type 1 HPT
3 Stability Bleed (B25) Open Type 1 25BS
fault diagnostic BP network. In addition, this AANN can serve as a
4 Fan Discharge Area Change Type 1 FP14
trend detector which provides instantaneous judgement on whether
5 Primary Area Change Type 1 FP8
true trend change occurs. Finally, concluding remarks are drawn and 6 LPC Performance Loss Type 1 LPC
recommendations for future work are given, suggesting a roadmap for 7 LPT Performance Loss Type 1 LPT
the use of engine data of the present ANN-based approach. 8 Fan Performance Loss Type 1 FAN
9 One Start Bleed (295) Open Type 1 29B1
10 TCC System Full Fault Type 1 TCC
11 Low (2.5) Bleed Leak Type 1 25BL
BACK-PROPAGATION ARTIFICIAL NEURAL 12 High (2.9) Bleed Leak Type 1 29BH
NETWORK 13 Both Start Bleeds (B2.95) Open Type 1 29B2
The Back-propagation(BP) algorithm is adopted herein for 14 HPC Stator Vane Misrigging Type 1 SVM
constructing the multi-layer perceptrons which constitute the neural 15 P49 (EPR) Indication Problem Type 2 +P49
network used for fault diagnosis. The BP network is categorized as a 16 N2 Indication Problem Type 2 +N2
17 N1 Indication Problem Type 2 +N1
supervised learning process, in which information sensed is
18 EGT Indication Problem Type 2 +EGT
propagated forward while error, after corrected against some targeted 19 WF Indication Problem Type 2 +WF
value, are transmitted backward through the network. For researches 20 P2 (EPR) Indication Problem Type 2 +P2
conducted in the area of ANN-based engine fault isolation, the BP 21 TAT Indication Problem Type 2 +TAT
algorithm has been demonstrated as the most popular and successful 22 Mach No. Indication Problem Type 2 +Ma
method. 23 Altitude Indication Problem Type 2 +ALT
Type 1: Engine Fault Type 2: Instrumentation Error
The BP network used in the present work consists of three layers,
namely, the input, hidden and output layers. The number of input
nodes could be 4 or 8, depending on the number of sensors available.
EGT, WF, N1, and N2 are assigned for the 4-input network and the Fault samples to be used in the subsequent analysis are generated
additional parameters P25, T25, T3, and P3 are added onto the 4-input using PW4000-94 influence coefficient matrix(EPR=1.29), which
ones to result in the 8-input network. As for the output nodes, at most connects the measurements with the performance related parameters,
23 types of faults including engine and sensor indication errors are and the standard deviations of the sensor scatters. Noise-free data was
incorporated. The type and explanation of these faults are listed in generated by multiplying the influence coefficient matrix with some
Table 1 below. The abbreviation for each fault is also listed in the predetermined severity indicators pertaining to certain fault type. The
right column of Table 1. final so-called simulated data, however, result from the addition of a
In training the BP network, the synaptic weights wij are corrected noise model to the noise-free data. The formula is stated below:
using the following algorithm,

sensor data = clean data + K σ [rand—0. 5] (2)

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 Table 2 Standard Deviations Used for Simulated Engine Data
Parameters Case 1 Case 2 Case 3 Case 4 Case 5 Remarks
T49C2(deg. C) 7.26 8.30 3.34 3.81 4.30 +EGT deviation
WF(%) 1.09 0.91 0.72 0.74 0.78 Corrected +WF deviation
N2C2(%) 0.33 0.38 0.17 0.15 0.17 Corrected +N2 deviation
N1C2(%) 0.34 0.50 0.21 0.17 0.18 Corrected +N1 deviation
P25C2(%) 0.53 0.43 0.79 0.74 0.78 LPC pressure ratio deviation
T25C2(deg. C) 0.88 0.86 1.13 2.60 2.23 LPC exit temperature deviation
T3C2(deg. C) 13.02 5.42 2.16 3.25 2.96 HPC exit temperature deviation
P3C2(%) 0.70 1.05 0.45 0.84 1.00 HPC pressure ratio deviation

Table 3 Noise Effect on Simulated Engine Data

Parameters T49C2 WF N2C2 N1C2 P25C2 T25C2 T3C2 P3C2 Remarks
HPT ETA –1.09% 11.86 1.41 -0.62 0.082 1.41 1.24 -4.39 -1.37 Noise-free
HPT ETA –1.09% 2.65 1.06 -0.57 -0.63 0.39 0.33 1.85 -0.94 Noisy
Ratio 4.48 1.3 1.09 -0.13 3.62 3.76 -2.37 1.46

where K is the control parameter governing the noise level, σ the
characteristic standard deviation of the sensor scatter described in
Table 2, and rand the random number between [0,1]. Five typical
sensor data scatters listed in Table 2 are supplied by different user
communities of airlines and engine repair stations. These data scatters
are associated with un-smoothed raw-data.
In order to result in an un-biased weight of importance for each
output node in the supervised learning process, the sensor data in Eq.
(2) is first normalized by its maximum value and then divided through
by its scatter σ . This normalization can provide less-noise-
contaminated data with relatively higher weight of influence.
FAULT DIAGNOSIS USING SIMULATED ENGINE
DATA
Effect of Noise Level
A thorough investigation was conducted using the P&W supplied
data. Both 4-input and 8-input ANN architectures were studied for
diagnosing the faults listed in Table 1. Effort was exercised in finding
the optimal selection of training/testing data set and the ANN network
that may lead to the goal of 90%-or-higher success rate. Regardless of
the input node number, the training success rate cannot exceed 95%
and the averaged testing success rate can only achieve 60% or so. The
unbalanced training and testing success rates indicates that the features
of the fault patterns learned are inconsistent with the patterns provided
in the test samples. In other words, the net is overtrained and the
ability of generalization is lost. This is in sharp contrast to the results
of ANN diagnosis using noise-free data, for which nearly 100%
success rate can be achieved for both training and testing purposes.
The cause for this low success rate is attributed to the high noise level
assigned in generating the simulation data, as explained below.
A representative case illustrating the high scatter input data can
be found with the HPT efficiency(ETA) loss, among others. In Table 3
listed a comparison of noise-free and noisy data of a 1.09% HPT
efficiency loss. Feature discrepancy can be found by comparing these
two sets of data. It is observed that the ratio of each pair of parameter
change differs far from the theoretical value of unity. This implies that
the fault pattern corresponding to –1.09% HPT efficiency loss is hard
to recognize as noise effect is included. For ANN-based diagnostic
method, noise level effect is often the main cause responsible for
difficulties in training the network and the low success rate in
diagnosing testing samples.
Noise Level of Actual Engine Parameters
In order to verify what should be the proper magnitude of
standard deviations, 48 PW4000 engines maintained by AMECO were
analyzed. The actual engine data was extracted using the data
extraction utility provided by P&W, which has a built-in 10-point
moving average data smoothing capability. Figure 1 shows the raw
and smoothed data and the five standard deviations of Table 2. It can
be observed that the averaged standard deviations of raw data are
comparable to Cases 3, 4 and 5 of Table 2. The smoothed data,
however, are significantly lower than those raw data given in Figure1,
as shown in the statistical averages listed in Table 4.
During the course of examining AMECO data, it was found that
some scatters due to trend changes are as high as the data scatters of
Cases l and 2 of Table 2. It seems the data jump due to trend change
were accounted as data uncertainty in Cases l and 2.
It is worth noticing that data used for diagnosis are smoothed data.
Hence, a reasonable suggestion for constructing simulation data that
reflects the randomness of the measured engine data would be using
standard deviations equivalent to Cases 3, 4 and 5 together with
choosing K=2.0.
Table 4 Averaged Standard Deviations of AMECO Data
Parameters T49C2 WF N2C2 N1C2
Raw Data σ 3.97°C 0.71% 0.24% 0.20%
Smoothed Data σ 1.95°C 0.28% 0.09% 0.08%
Feasibility Study of ANN-based Fault Diagnostic Method
Training and Testing fault samples used for evaluating the ANN-
based diagnostic method are generated using the scatter of Case 5 and
K=2.0. Since HPT and TCC faults, and +Ma and +ALT indication
errors are indistinguishable as viewed from the simulated data, we

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 EGT WF N2C2 N1C2
10 4 1
9 raw 1.4
raw
smoothed
3.5 raw raw
8 Table 2 3
smoothed 0.8 sm oothed 1.2 smoothed
Table 2 Table 2
7 Table 2
2.5 1
6 0.6
5 2 0.8
σ 4 σ σ 0.4
σ 0.6
1.5
3 0.4
1
2 0.2
1 0.5 0.2
0 0 0 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 0 5 10 15 2025 3035 40 4550 55 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 0 5 10152025 30354045 5055
Engine No. Engine No. Engine No. Engine No.

Fig. 1 Comparison of Engine Scatters

combine these four fault types into two, resulting in a total of 21 faults
that are to be diagnosed.
The BP network designed has a 3-layer 4-15-21 node
architecture. In the generation of training data, there are 50 samples
generated for each fault. As for the testing data, the number of
samples for each fault is increased up to 100. In other words, there
will be 2200 cases to be diagnosed by a BP network which is trained
using 1100 fault samples.
The test results are illustrated in Table 5. The overall success rate
achieves a value of 91% which satisfies the original 90-or-higher
design goal. Of the individual success rate for each fault, it is found
that LPC, +EGT, +N2 and SVM are faults that are relatively difficult
to identify. LPC fault is often confused with +EGT fault and +N2 and
SVM faults are easily mixed up. The reason for this has been verified
by changing the standard deviations of Eq. (2). The success rates are
found inversely proportional to the level of data scatter, and LPC,
+EGT, +N2 and SVM are faults that are more susceptible to noise
contamination.
and engine instrumentation problems from the gaspath faults, it was
agreed that the presently developed neural network focuses on the
isolation of the first 15 faults listed in Table 1. In addition, the level
of data scatter should be equivalent to those of Cases 3, 4 and 5 of
Table 2. Owing to the importance of data scatter on the accuracy of
the present diagnostic method, a parallel research on noise-filtering of
the input data was conducted. The method and results are presented in
the next Section.
Both 4-input and 8-input BP neural nets were constructed. For
each fault, 20 and 50 cases are generated for training and testing
purposes, respectively. Noise model adopts Case 3 standard
deviations and the noise control parameter K was selected from 1 to
3.5, covering a full spectrum of diagnosis under low to high noise
levels. The threshold for the output layer to be fired is set to be 0.3,
and a successful diagnosis is regarded as one of the fired three possible
output predictions matches with the true fault.
The 4-input and 8-input diagnostic results are shown in Tables 6
and 7, respectively. Some observations can be found with these
results:

Table 5 Test Results for BP Trained Using Normal Data 1) Success rates decrease with the increase of data scatter;
Scatter
Success Rates Success Rates
2) Success rates of 8-input ANN are only marginally higher than
No. Faults No. Faults
K=2.0 K=2.0 those of the 4-input ANN;
( σ =Case 5) ( σ =Case 5)
1 HPC 91% 12 +EGT 75% 3) FP14, LPC, 25BL and 29BH faults are more difficult to isolate
2 HPT/TCC 98% 13 +WF 97% than others;
3 25 BS 96% 14 25BL 82%
4 FP14 88% 15 29BH 92%
5 FP8 90% 16 29B2 100% 4) To meet the requirement of a minimum overall success rate of
6 LPC 65% 17 SVM 83% 90%, the parameter K cannot be greater than 3.0 and 3.5,
7 LPT 99% 18 +P49 99% respectively, for the 4-input and 8-input diagnoses.
8 FAN 95% 19 +P2 100%
9 29B1 100% 20 +TAT 99%
10 +N2 74% 21 +Ma/+ALT 100% Blind Test Results
11 +N1 99% A blind test problem set consisting of 150 faults was generated by
Total Samples Tested: 2200 P&W to evaluate the present ANN-based diagnostic method. BP
Averaged Success Rate: 91.0% neural networks with 4-input and 8-input nodes, respectively, and 15
output nodes(the first 15 faults in Table 1) were trained. At most three
predicted root causes can be proposed for each diagnosis provided
Evaluation of ANN-based Fault Diagnostic Method these causes are fired up at the output nodes. The BP net is trained by
The feasibility study of ANN-based diagnosis concluded that a 300 samples and the outcome is shown in Table 8. Both 4- and 8-
minimum 90% success rate can be achieved for practical engine input diagnoses achieve high success rates. A further examination of
operations. Since P&W has already had a method to separate aircraft the failed cases indicates that:

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 Table 6 Diagnostic Success Rates of 4-Input ANN Table 7 Diagnostic Success Rates of 8-Input ANN
No. Type K=1.0 K=1.5 K=2.0 K=2.5 K=3.0 K=3.5 No. Type K=1.0 K=1.5 K=2.0 K=2.5 K=3.0 K=3.5
1 HPC 100% 100% 98% 92% 82% 80% 1 HPC 100% 100% 100% 100% 98% 98%
2 HPT 100% 100% 100% 100% 96% 98% 2 HPT 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%
3 25BS 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 98% 3 25BS 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%
4 FP14 100% 94% 88% 82% 74% 66% 4 FP14 100% 100% 96% 92% 92% 64%
5 FP8 100% 96% 96% 96% 92% 96% 5 FP8 100% 100% 94% 96% 92% 84%
6 LPC 96% 96% 86% 84% 74% 72% 6 LPC 100% 98% 94% 86% 92% 86%
7 LPT 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 7 LPT 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%
8 FAN 100% 98% 100% 98% 100% 98% 8 FAN 100% 98% 98% 96% 98% 96%
9 29B1 100% 100% 100% 100% 98% 94% 9 29B1 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%
10 TCC 100% 100% 100% 98% 96% 92% 10 TCC 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 92%
11 25BL 98% 72% 76% 70% 60% 56% 11 25BL 100% 100% 82% 84% 62% 62%
12 29BH 100% 94% 84% 80% 64% 50% 12 29BH 100% 98% 92% 88% 84% 78%
13 29B2 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 13 29B2 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%
14 P49 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 14 P49 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 98%
15 SVM 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 15 SVM 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%
Overall 99.6% 96.6% 95% 93% 89% 87% Overall 100% 96.6% 97% 96% 94% 91%

Table 8 Blind Test Results source of false alarm as data are inserted without examination into the
4-input/15 8-input/15 diagnostic system.
Root Causes Root Causes The auto-associative ANN used is a feedforward network, as
Accuracy of First Pick 91% 88% illustrated in Figure 2. A major distinctive feature of the auto-
Accuracy of First Two Picks 94% 94%
associative network is that it contains a bottleneck layer. The number
Accuracy of Three Picks 96.3% 94.7%
of bottleneck nodes should be lesser than that of the input nodes, but
larger than the degree-of-freedom of the system being diagnosed. The
input and output layers have identical parameters. Theoretically, auto-
1) Most of the prediction errors were between HPT and TCC, and
associative ANN forms a unitary mapping which maps the input
between the bleed systems. To the knowledge of authors, this
parameters onto themselves. All the noise-filtering process is
type of isolation between similar faults has not been satisfactorily
undertaken in the mapping part, namely from the input to the
resolved by other methods either.
bottleneck layer. Once the intrinsic states are retrieved from the
mapping process, a demapping part is followed by decoding the
2) It is interesting to see that the success rates of 8-input diagnosis
bottleneck nodes back to the output nodes. In our auto-associative
were lower than those of the 4-input. The reason, perhaps, is
architecture design we use BP algorithm with sigmoidal non-linearity
attributed to either that the number of 150 test cases is not
assigned to each hidden nodes including the bottleneck nodes.
statistically sufficient to draw a general conclusion, or that the
data scatters of some sensors, for instance, T25C2 and T3C2, are
so high that some of the fault features are overly distorted.
8-input AANN Results and Discussions
The auto-associative network selected for discussion has a
structure of 8-9-5-9-8 in which 5 denotes the number of bottleneck
SENSOR VALIDATION NEURAL NETWORK nodes. In general, the convergence rate of auto-associative ANN is
slow, and at present there is no conclusive acceleration method that is
found effective for improving the present AANN BP algorithm.
Auto-associative ANN
In the training of the auto-associative ANN, noise-free data are
It has been clearly demonstrated in the previous 4- and 8-input
used at the output nodes while various kinds of noisy input data are
fault diagnostic studies that the success rate depends virtually on the
inserted from the input nodes. It could be argued that in the real-world
quality of the sensor data. For an ideal case of using noise-free
application, the noise-free data can never be available. Nonetheless,
training and testing data, the success rate can be 100%. Therefore, the
the optimal condition of using noise-free data for the output nodes is
design of a preprocessor that can effectively reduce the input noise
the limit an auto-associative network can do for noise-filtering. It
level is of paramount importance.
could be anticipated that using the same noisy data at both input and
Auto-associative neural network attracts much attention in the
output nodes will result in a less effective noise filtering auto-
recent real-time controller design. It has the advantage of fast
associative network. The remaining question is about how low the
computing and can perform sensor failure detection, identification and
noise level should be to make an acceptable noise-filtering AANN.
accommodation(SFDIA) simultaneously. Of its functions for noise-
Although the effectiveness of noise-filtering can be evaluated by
filtering, missing sensor replacement and gross error detection and
comparing the data prior to and after filtering, however, often the
identification, we only examine the noise-filtering ability and reserve
noise-filtering effect is not uniformly valid for every sensor data. For
the other capabilities for future investigations. In the practical
the present AANN architecture, it is hard to filter out noise contained
application of engine condition monitoring, a sensor could be biased
in the N2C2 data while others are almost completely recovered noise-
or failed without appreciation. Invalid sensory information is often the

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 Input Layer: Hidden Layer1 Hidden Layer2 Output Layer: distribution shown in Figure 4. It is believed that the present auto-
Noisy Data Filtered Data associative network can be further expanded and elaborated to include
Bottleneck in the functions of missing data replacement and sensor bias
T49C2 Layer T49C2
correction, making the present neural network approach more robust
WF WF for the future real-world applications.
N2C2 N2C2
N1C2 N1C2
100
P25C2 P25C2 90 with AANN
80
T25C2 T25C2 70 without AANN

T3C2 T3C2
P3C2 P3C2
Fig. 2 Auto-associative neural network
architecture(8-9-5-9-8) used for 8-input data filtering
free. In order to give a fair evaluation of the auto-associative filter, we
use the success rate of the diagnosed results as the measure of filter
effectiveness. In other words, the auto-associative net is connected
onto the BP diagnostic network and we use the diagnosed output
results of the integrated nets as the basis for comparison. The BP
diagnostic network is trained using scatter-free data. Therefore, the
reduction of noise level is mainly accounted in the auto-associative
filter.
Illustrated in Figure 3 are the probability density function type
exemplification of the noise-filtering effect. The abscissa variable Λ
measures the noise-to-signal ratio and is defined by
1 M
Λ= ∑ Λi (2a)
M i =1
Ni
Λi = (2b)
N i + Si
Si = X i , N i = X i − X i (2c)
in which X i is the ith sensor data and X i the ith scatter-free data. The
integer M represents the number of sensors and presently we choose
M=8 for the 8-input network. Note that the parameter Λ can be taken
as a noise-to-signal ratio, 0 ≤ Λ ≤ 1 , and the larger the noise the bigger
the Λ value. The ordinate variable is the percentage of successful
fault diagnosis for samples having noise levels in the range between
Λ and Λ + ∆Λ , and in Figure 3 ∆Λ =0.05.
Sensor data are first generated according to Eq. (2), in which K
ranges from 0 to 600. The generated data are rearranged, from small
to large numbers, into a queue using the definition Λ and then
diagnosed and converted into Figure 3.
Figure 3 shows the results obtained with and without auto-associative
filtering. For diagnosis without auto-associative filtering, the success
rate above 90% corresponds to Λ ≤ 33%. The tolerance of the
diagnostic network can be doubled, Λ ≤ 68%, when the auto-
associative filter is implemented. This is seen from the much elevated
Success Rate(%)
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Λ (%)
Fig. 3 Success rate v.s. noise-to-signal ratio for input data
with/without auto-associative neural network(AANN) filtering
AANN as Trend Detector
A timely detection of trend changes is important for engine
condition monitoring. However, of equal importance is the avoidance
of false alerts. AANN is a data validity preprocessor trained by fault
samples with various levels of trend changes. Therefore, AANN can
serve as a trend detector while analyzing the input data validity.
DePold and Gass (1988) proposed to detect trend using ANN trained
by three sets of filtered data. It is claimed that 66% of saving in
detection time response can be achieved. Noise-filtering and trend
detection can be done simultaneously using the present AANN and, in
principle, the trend can be detected with no time delay, as explained
below.
Figure 4 shows the noise-filtering capability of the presently
trained AANN. The training samples used cover a range of HPC
efficiency delta from -1% to -5%. It is shown that the noise can be
effectively filtered to result in a filtered data trend which is much
closer to the original noise-free straight line behavior. Also shown in
Figure 5 is a time series representation of this AANN trend detection
procedure. A 2% trend change of HPC performance loss was
assumed, and on the clean data a data scatter corresponding to K=2.0
is superimposed. As conventional 10-point moving average or its
variant of exponential memory retention(DePold and Gass, 1998) is
applied to these noisy raw data, it takes 10 to 12 points for trend
change to be revealed. However, contrary to these conventional
smoothing methods, AANN can detect this trend immediately without
time delay.
To further examine the data validity capability of AANN, several
unreasonably large deviants or “wild” points were purposely implanted
in the time series. It can be seen in Figure 6 that no false alarm was
predicted by the present AANN filter as well.
From the above observation, it is proposed that AANN can be
used as a good candidate for data preprocessing. Not only sensor error
can be detected and identified, the subsequent fault isolation can be
improved to a higher rate of success, most importantly, the trend can
be detected instantaneously which makes the neural network-
based condition monitoring a more valuable tool.

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 HPC PERFORM ANCE LOSS HPC PERFORM ANCE LOSS
0 0
-1 clean data clean data
-1
noisy data noisy data
-2 -2

ETA
filtered data filtered data
ETA

-3 -3
-4 -4
-5 -5
-6 -6
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35

Norm alized delta EGT Norm alized delta W F

HPC PERFORM ANCE LOSS H PC PERFO RM A N CE LO SS
0 0
clean data
-1 -1
noisy data
-2 -2
filtered data
ETA

ETA
-3 -3
clean data
-4 noisy data -4
-5 filtered data -5
-6 -6
-0.2 -0.1 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
-0.5 -0.4 -0.3 -0.2 -0.1 0 0.1
Norm alized delta N1C2 N orm alized delta N 2C2
Fig. 4 Noise-filtering Capability of AANN

HPC PERFORMANCE LOSS HPC PERFORMANCE LOSS

Normalized delta EGT

Normalized delta EGT

Time Time
Fig. 5 Comparison of Data Smoothing Methods Fig. 6 “Wild” Points Data Correction by AANN
in Trend Detection Filter

CONCLUDING REMARKS 1) Both 4-input and 8-input BP neural networks meet the
The collaborative research on developing artificial neural network requirement of a minimum 90% success rates.
fault diagnostic method has been carried out with initial success. Both
4-input and 8-input networks were constructed using fault samples 2) The unidentifiability problem of the model-based linear
generated by the P&W supplied influence coefficient matrix and data system approach is circumvented. A systematic diagnostic
scatters. A proper noise model which reflects the actual parameter process can be done with the limited 4-input system, and the
scatter characteristics was obtained after a study of the real engine results are almost as good as those of the expanded 8-input
data. The objective of the present investigation is to evaluate the system.
ability of the ANN-based method in diagnosing the selected 15 faults.
A minimum 90% success rate is set as the criterion for this diagnostic 3) An effective pre-processing method for validating the raw
method to be considered acceptable. The conclusions drawn from this data is of paramount importance. Preliminary study of auto-
collaboration are as follows: associative neural network has been performed for sensor
data validation. It is an effective noise-filtering and

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 instrumentation fault isolation preprocessor. The tolerance
of the present diagnostic BP network to data scatter can be
significantly enhanced as auto-associative filter is used.
4) The auto-associative neural network can serve as an
effective trend detector which in principle can detect trend
changes without any time delay.
5) Engine performance might migrate when service time or
cycles accumulate. Method of adapting the parameters of an
engine simulation code so as to let the influence coefficient
matrix reflect and keep up with the actual engine operational
condition should be considered. This adaptive influence
coefficient matrix will be indispensable for the practical use
of the present methodology.
6) Further examination of the presently developed neural
network method with actual fault cases is necessary. The
high success rate ought to be further verified using actual
engine data.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The present work is supported by a joint collaboration contract
sponsored by P&W. The authors are deeply indebted to Hans Depold,
Ranjan Ganguli and Alan Volponi of P&W for many insightful
discussions and suggestions. The continuing encouragement of Dr.
Bob Ni, P&W senior fellow, which makes this collaboration
materialized is mostly appreciated.
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