System maintenance drive simulation method in intermittent operations under PHM supervision

Prognosis and Health Management (PHM) has exerted a profound impact on the integrated maintenance and support system. By monitoring the fault evolution of the parts or components, the potential fault could be predicted, and the corresponding maintenance and support decisions could be deducted. PHM has transferred the traditional maintenance mode to the Condition-based Maintenance (CBM). In order to validate the availability and the effectiveness of the integrated maintenance and support system, the computer simulation method is widely used. The maintenance drive serves as the starting point of a new cycle of maintenance and support activity in the object-oriented simulation model. Traditional simulations based on the system failure rate or mean time between failures (MTBF) would not ensure an accurate result when PHM functions. This paper makes a discussion on that problem. The concept of fault evolution index (FEI) is put forth in the paper, and several intermittent FEI evolution models are given for simulation reference. In addition, the paper gives a detailed process of modeling and simulating the maintenance drive.