Improving condition indicators for helicopter health and usage monitoring systems

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to suggest new method for improving the condition indicators (CIs) used in health and usage monitoring system based on signal separation of gears. Design/methodology/approach – The research method is based on employing signal separation techniques to improve gears signal and fault signature. The signal separation is based on adaptive filters concept. Findings – CIs estimated for the deterministic part of vibration signal show higher sensitivity to gears faults in comparison to indicators estimated based on the original signal. This method proposed could enhance early fault detection in gears, particularly for those applications where strong background noise from other sources in the machine masks the characteristics fault components. Originality/value – The contribution of this research is improving the CIs currently used for helicopter gearboxes. As consequence the safe operation and availability will be improved.