Patent ID: 7933754

Claim:
A program storage device readable by a computer, the device embodying a program or instructions executable by the computer to perform a method to estimate damage propagation comprising: making available a set of input parameters to a computational model; executing the computational model with defined changes within a range of an input parameter of the set of input parameters to define a range of at least one modeled output; receiving at least one signal responsive to and representative of a respective one of an actual sensor output; estimating damage propagation based upon a correlation of the received signal to the modeled output; and generating a signal corresponding to the damage propagation, wherein: the making available comprises supplying a first range of a first input parameter and a second range of a second input parameter; the executing comprises defining a response map of the modeled output in response to defined changes within the first range of the first input parameter and defined changes within the second range of the second input parameter; and the receiving comprises receiving more than one signal responsive to and representative of more than one actual sensor output and the executing comprises defining more than one response map, each of the more than one response maps corresponding to a respective one of the more than one received signals, the method further comprising: normalizing each of the more than one received signals and corresponding more than one response maps with respect to a reference value; superimposing the more than one normalized received signals and corresponding more than one normalized response maps; and determining a collective best match of the more than one superimposed normalized received signals with the corresponding more than one superimposed normalized response maps.