Patent ID: 8370045

Claim:
A computer implemented method to predict starter control valve failures in gas turbine engines using a starter control valve health prognostic comprising the steps of: receiving historic gas turbine engine startup data for a plurality of gas turbine engine startups of one or more historic gas turbine engines of a certain gas turbine engine model, the historic gas turbine engine startup data including an indication that at least one of the plurality of gas turbine engine startups failed due to a starter control valve failure; determining, in a first computer process by a computer, a starter control valve pre-failure signature for the one or more historic gas turbine engines responsive to the historic gas turbine engine startup data; extracting, in a second computer process by the computer, one or more health index features from the starter control valve pre-failure signature of the one or more historic gas turbine engines; constructing, in a third computer process by the computer, a starter control valve health prognostic for the certain gas turbine engine model responsive to the one or more health index features extracted from the starter control valve pre-failure signature of the one or more historic gas turbine engines; receiving operational gas turbine engine startup data for at least one gas turbine engine startup of one or more operational gas turbine engines of the certain gas turbine engine model; extracting, in a fourth computer process by the computer, one or more health index features from the operational gas turbine engine startup data for each of the at least one gas turbine engine startups; calculating, in a fifth computer process by the computer, a starter control valve health index for each of the at least one gas turbine engine startups responsive to the one or more health index features extracted from the operational gas turbine engine startup data to thereby define one or more health indices; comparing, in a sixth computer process by the computer, each of the one or more health indices calculated by the fifth computer process to the starter control valve health prognostic for the certain gas turbine engine model; and determining in a seventh computer process by the computer, responsive to the step of comparing, a potential predictive starter control valve failure point, the potential predictive starter control valve failure point being located where one of the one or more health indices correlates to the starter control valve health prognostic for the certain gas turbine engine model.